EV Miata - An Electric Miata Project

dead battery

2012-02-07T23:17:00.000-08:00

Well, haven't had much to post about in quite a while. Generally I come home, plug the car in and in the morning I unplug it and drive it to work. Simple as that.

Tonight it wasn't so simple...
It was a misty morning so I drove to work with my driving lights on - not the headlights, just the driving lights - it wasn't dark, or rainy just a little misty. So I park in the lot in plenty of time for my 9:00 meeting and at when I return to my car at 6:00 - nothin'. No dash lights, no familiar thump of the contactor, just nothin'. At first I wasn't sure what had happened, then I noticed that the light control was still on - the battery was dead. Without the 12v battery, the contactor won't close, the controller won't get operating voltage, nothing will work.

Now I sat for a minute and remembered something... When I first built the car I had the DC/DC converter connected directly to the pack, but it was constantly charging the battery and draining the pack, so I put in a relay so that the DC/DC converter was only active when the key was on. Now there was a small mechanical switch on the side of the relay that allowed you to activate it manually, I knew if I could get the relay to close, the DC/DC converter would provide the 12v needed to get the car to work.

I popped the hood and unscrewed the cover of the High Voltage Enclosure to access the relay, With a flash light I checked either side for the switch - there it was on the driver side - just below 2 high voltage leads. I turned the ignition key on then dug a pen out of my laptop bag thinking it would safely flip the switch, but it wouldn't reach it. I thought about it for a minute, but I knew I had to use my finger to do this. I put my left hand behind my back (an old trick I learned from a TV repairman - you don't want to touch ground with your left hand when you get a jolt on your right and have the shock pass through your heart...) and with my right index finger reached between the wires and pushed the little plastic tab in. It made a satisfying clack as the relay closed and the 12v from the DC/DC converter kept it that way.

I closed the hood and got behind the wheel. Everything looked normal now., As I turned the key into the start position I heard that familiar thump of the contactor and we were mobile.

It was dark and with the headlights on I knew eventually the 12v would drop pretty low and the controller wouldn't like it - maybe enough to stall out - so I took the streets home. Sure enough, about a mile from my door the "Check Engine" light came on solid but she continued to drive fine. I got her home and safely into the garage.

I can't think of another car that will start with a completely dead battery. I've compression started a lot of cars, but never with the battery completely dead. Even the old crank-start cars needed a battery for ignition, right? These electric cars are somethin' aint they?

Cool electric car decals

2011-09-05T09:56:00.000-07:00

Been looking for some good EV stickers for my electric Miata, but all the stickers I found were from the 90's and quite dull.

One winter I came across some cool lightning bolt graphics at a ski shop. Comes out they were from Electric Sunglasses. A little research and I found some stickers that clearly said "electric", were cool and didn't break the bank.

If you want to get some for yourself, just send me a comment and I'll pass along the URL.

Miata "hood" alignment

2011-09-03T09:40:00.000-07:00

I see a lot of Miata's with hood problems - or at least that's how they look. You know the ones, where the hood sticks up higher than the pop up headlights. I always wondered how the hood got that far out of alignment, but that's not what's rong at all.
After doing a lot of under hood work I found my car exhibited the same hood issue. But I wuickly found out that it wasn't the hood at all, just the headlight covers...

There isn't any bracing in the back of the Miata headlight covers. Any pressure will cause them to bend down creating what looks like a hood alignment problem. Luckily, the fix is really simple...

Prop open the hood, grab a rag and "love up" the underside of the headlight covers. Apply a little upward pressure as you rub across the width of the cover. Don't pull hard, just gently pressure is all it needs.

In no time your headlight covers will be back where they belong and your hood will fit like new.

$8 Fix for a faded Miata bumper

2011-08-31T21:40:00.000-07:00

If you have an early Miata with original paint, chances are the front bumper has faded. You have probably read about different polishes or treatments that should work, but none worked on my car. Here's how the nose used to look - tired and faded...

Then I got the idea that what was really wrong was that the clear coat was gone. I tried a little cear touch up paint to test the ides, and it worked! I went to the local auto parts store and bought a can of Duplicolor clear for $8. I masked off the metal work, so that only the rubber bumper was exposed and laid down 3 coats of clear before the can gave out.
Here is the result:

After a couple of days, I rubbed it in with some polishing compound to bring out the shine and there you have it. No need for an expensive paint job and no more embarrassing faded nose - and for only $8!

Miata can't shift into reverse?

2011-03-27T13:09:00.000-07:00

About a year ago, I was driving my '92 Miata and I couldn't find reverse gear. I made a couple of simple fixes and, so far, I haven't had any trouble with reverse since.

Here's a tip or two if you find you can't get your Miata into reverse:

If you have trouble shifting into reverse with the clutch fully engaged, try giving the car a little throttle while you release the clutch AND pull the shifter into reverse. You may feel the gears start to grind a bit, but it will often slip into gear.

If that doesn't work, you can replace the reverse light switch and replace your transmission fluid with synthetic. I'm not sure which of these made the biggest impact since I did them the same day, but neither of them are expensive or hard to do.

Replace the reverse light switch Reverse lights are often a trouble spot for NA Miata's. Either the switch fails or the connectors to the switch work their way loose. The reverse switch can also become stuck which may prevent you from shifting into reverse. This may have been the problem with my car, since the shaft was hard to depress and felt like it was worn into place. It's really not too difficult to replace the switch itself, though make sure you reinstall your old washer. Without it the switch will protrude into the transmission a little too far making matters worse!. Replacing the switch isn't hard, but connecting the switch it IS. The wiring is on top of the transmission (!) making it quite a chore to connect. Luckily, they aren't polarized, so either wire on the harness can go to either wire on the switch - but that's small consolation.
Check out the red wires on the left side of the transmission in this picture from Hakuna Miata. They head up and over the transmission to the right side where they are connected to the harness. Fun eh? As an added safety measure, I would recommend taping these connectors with some duct tape after they're connected. You don't want to do this again...
Replace your transmission fluid with synthetic. Synthetic oil is much slipperier then the run of the mill stuff, which makes the transmission easier to shift and could improve your mileage as well. You'll want to refill the transmission with the car level so that you can get an accurate read on how much synthetic is in the gear box. Jack up both ends of your car and make sure you have enough room to work. You can get synthetic at most car parts stores for under $10, and while you are there you may need to pick up a couple of other things
- My filter plug used a square drive - which was not in my toolbox - so add that to your shopping list if you don't have one.
- Spray solvent. My filler plug would not come out for anything and the usual WD-40 did nothing. Comes out the last person to open it (or maybe it was the factory?) gooped it up with a lot of thread lock. A little spray solvent did the trick.
- A fluid pump. You'll need a pump to get the fluid in the transmission, since the filler is too close to the tunnel for the bottle to fit.
- The Synthetic transmission oil. The manual says 2.1 quarts are needed, but I used a little less than 2 and spilled a bit as well.

After I made these simple changes, shifting was noticeably improved. And in the past year, I never had a problem shifting into reverse again. Hope it works for you.

Blame the potholes

2010-08-26T19:05:00.000-07:00

Before you read the following post, you should know that I drive this car daily.
It may seem that this blog recently is nothing more than a list of problems, but when the car works (which it does 99.9% of the time) there is nothing of any interest to post - "disconnected charge cable, backed out of garage, drove to work, drive home from work, connect charger cable..."

Yesterday I had a little trouble getting to work. Along the way my controller appeared to shut down - the Charge light went out and the Check Engine light went on plus, I had no power. I coasted to a stop and restarted the car. Everything worked fine. I took the streets to work in case it decided to fail on me again and once I parked at work, I hooked up my laptop to my Zilla to read the error codes. There were 3 of them - the 12v supply was too low, the contactor opened unexpectedly, the motor RPM was too high. Sounded pretty serious, but I remembered a similar set of errors when my 12v SLI battery failed and I had left the door ajar one night, leaving the interior lights lit for 14 hours... I decided the SLI battery was to blame and after work, took the streets home without incident. Once back home, I hooked up my 12v charger to my SLI battery. It showed it was at 100% - but I ran it through a charging cycle anyway.

Next day, I drive to work without incident. Ont the way home, however, it stalled, First on the freeway (i was able to coast down the next exit where I was able to restart it), then at a left turn (sorry to the people behind me) then at a traffic light (more sorries to those behind me).

I figured it must be a loose 12v wire. Saturday I popped the hood and poked around for a loose wire. Everything looked fine...until I noticed the ground connection under the relay box was loose. I tightened it up and took her for a test drive - all good. A simple fix to what sounded like a serious problem.

The potholes must have rattled it loose.

Electric Toyota Miata?

2010-03-30T20:22:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend I was checking the throttle and noticed that it didn't go "full on" when the accelerator was fully depressed - it only made it 90% of the way. This meant I wasn't getting 100% of the power even with the pedal to the metal...

I reworked the cable connection to the throttle using a cable stop from Kragen and moved it to a lower hole on the actuator arm. This made the car much more responsive - less cable travel to get the same amount (or more!) speed.

Monday's commute was a little more fun than normal. First it was more responsive, so I was passing cars, making abrupt lane changes and generally enjoying the ride.

On the way home I floored it and felt the cable jerk - I released the pedal, but the car decided she was a Toyota and was at full speed - the throttle was stuck. I pulled up on the accelerator with my toe, but that did nothing, so I switched off the ignition, then put the key back to the first position (accessory) so that the wheel wouldn't lock up on me, and coasted to a stop on the shoulder.

Under the hood I quickly saw that the cable stop was stuck against one of the housing screws on the potbox. I bent the arm a little toward the front of the car so that there was clearance again. Checked it once or twice, then hopped back in and waited for a break in traffic. I accelerated a little slower so as not to tempt fate, and drove home. After a couple more tests in the garage I was convinced that all was okay.

So, I think this illustrates one of the advantages of building your own car - or at least working on it - you know what all the parts do and can quickly remedy a situation that would have stranded an average motorist.

I guess that's one way to look at it...

Bad SLI battery

2010-02-20T22:10:00.000-08:00

Well, on my way to work Wednesday morning the check engine light came on solid. This is the Zilla’s way of telling me that something is amiss. The can continued to drive with full power and the Zilla wasn’t overheating (according to the gauge) so I continued my drive. Once in the parking garage I plugged in my laptop and looked at the error codes. I was surprised to see a whole bunch of 'em:

1224 - SLI battery too low and caused shutdown of controller
1221 - Major Overspeed Either Motor Beyond redline by X
1223 - SLI battery below warning threshold
1124 - Main Contactor Stuck On

2 of these, the overspeed and contactor stuck on are pretty serious, but the motor wasn’t over-reved, and the contactor was not stuck on…

By the way, SLI stands for Starter, Lights, Ignition since that's the role the battery plays in a gas car. In an EV, it's more of a buffer to keep the 12v system running during heavy loads.

I cleared the errors and thought I’d take a look at it again on the way home.

After work I drive the car out of the garage without the check engine light lit. On my way home the light came on steady again. It was raining so I was using my wipers and headlights, so then I started to think the real error was low SLI battery voltage and this low voltage was causing the Zilla problems in its logic which made it think the motor was over revving or the contactor was stuck.

A few blocks from my house it did stall, but I was able to get it running again and brought her home.

I tested the voltage on the SLI battery – 12.4v, not too good. I got out my 12v charger and charged it up.

The next day I drove it to work when the check engine light came on again. Once in the garage I checked the error codes and this time it was just 1223 - SLI battery below warning threshold. I left work a little earlier to avoid using the headlights, and it wasn’t raining, so the trip home was, other than the check engine light staying lit, uneventful.

Back at the house the SLI battery again showed 12.4v. I put it on the charger for a couple of hours, but when I removed the charger the voltage started to drop. In an hour it was back at 12.4v - must be a bad battery.

I checked on line and the nearest auto parts store, Kragen, doesn’t carry them. I tried Sears, and they don’t carry them either. I was thinking I was going to have to order one on line and pay a hefty shipping fee, when I found that Auto Zone did carry them and the one 20 minutes away had one in stock!

Saturday I pulled the old battery, picked up the new one and gave them the old one in return. Connected it up and thought I was all set…

Monday on the way home the light comes on again! Same error, 1223. I put the new battery on the charger and checked under the hood to see if my Iota was disconnected. It was wired fine, but I did find one of its fuses blown. Not sure when this would have happened (maybe when installing the new battery?), but this must be why the new battery died on me. Just the same, the old battery was bad because it wouldn't hold a charge.

So, moral of the story?
- Low SLI battery will make your Zilla think strange thoughts
- Check your fuses!

ZEV Stickers

2010-01-20T16:27:00.000-08:00

I just got a letter from the DMV in Sacramento with 3 silver stickers. These are similar to the yellow stickers you see on hybrids in CA, but these are better - they're silver.
These will let me drive in a carpool lane and park in an "EV only" spot for charging.

Earlier, the DMV denied my application because they were not aware the car was converted to electric. I sent them a response with the BARs report showing that the state representative attested to it being fully electric.
How could they say no...

Range update

2010-01-14T22:32:00.000-08:00

So, I probably have a good 10 months of driving on the car and the battery pack is broken in quite well. The SOC gauge has been showing over 100% in the morning for a few months, but now it seems pegged. I was estimating the old fully charged SOC at 110% but now I'd say it's 120%. After I drive the 4.5 miles to work and she sits a few hours it shows 100% SOC. When I return home and let her sit, it now shows 70% remaining. These are highway miles too, at 60+ MPH...
Back in June I did a test and put 17 highway miles on a full charge. Now I could probably do 20 or 25. Maybe I should revise the range up a bit?

New plate

2010-01-14T08:51:00.000-08:00

My wife was driving the car one afternoon and got a ticket for no front license plate. Since the car didn't come with a front plate, I needed to get a new set to clear the ticket. Sounds like a good excuse to order personalized plates... Took a few weeks, but I picked them up on Tuesday. Now I just have to get the front plate installed...

0-60 time revisited

2009-12-06T18:33:00.000-08:00

Quick update on the 0-60 time. I occasionally make a pass on my way to work and see what time I get. I still spin the wheels a bit, but I've been getting 12.8 seconds pretty consistently, so this may be the best I can do.
I can't help but think a real driver on a track could do better, but this will have to do for now. Still, it's faster than a Triumph Spitfire, MGB or the original Porsche 914 - http://www.albeedigital.com/supercoupe/articles/0-60times.html
I'll continue taking an occasional pass to see if I can better 12.8.

Denied!

2009-10-23T17:33:00.000-07:00

I'm looking at adding an AVCON charging port to the car since the public charging locations here in SF are mostly all equipped with them. In order to use the public charging spots in parking lots, you need to have the proper silver ZEV stickers on the car. Since the car is now registered and the stickers are only $8 (plus they let you drive in the carpool lane) I figured I'd send in the form.
This was in September.

A month later I get a letter from the DMV - not with my stickers, but with my uncashed check and a nice letter explaining that a 1992 Miata is a gas car and if I want to register it as Natural Gas, blah, blah, blah.

The form wasn't very detailed - it was intended for hybrids, those Ulta Low Emission Vehicles and maybe an EV1 or RAV 4 EV - not for a conversion. I can see how they might think I was just trying to get into the car pool lane for free...

After stewing for a couple of days I wrote them what I thought was a nice letter and included a copy of the BAR Referee certificate to prove the car is now electric.

I was going to include some pictures, and a link to my web site, but figured that may just annoy them.

We'll see what they say.

New website is up!

2009-10-20T23:06:00.000-07:00

I'm happy to say the new website is finally up! We've been working on getting the kits ready to ship, getting the new web site designed, working through a bunch of issues with PayPal then Google Checkout, but it's finally ready to go - at least close enough, and I'm tired of looking at it.

The kits are orderable from the pricing page and we decided to have a special introductory price of $2,000 instead of the $2,500 we plan on charging. How long will the discount last? Don't know. You might want to buy one now while you can save the $500.

I was hoping to have a shipping through a couple of carriers but this turned out to be a big hassle, so shipping is through UPS only for now.

I no longer have a link from the site to this blog - I wanted to keep it the way it was rather than try to give it a serious business tone. I have another blog - EV Miata News - for the serious business stuff.

If you feel like it, drop me an email to let me know what you think and especially if you find any bugs, typos or etc.

The Tail

2009-10-01T10:59:00.000-07:00

I'm not one for a lot of stickers on my car, so I find most people don't notice that my car is electric. One afternoon I was thinking of putting something where the tailpipe was and struck upon the idea of hanging an electrical plug there.

It's not connected to anything - in fact it's just the plug I cut off my Iota dc/dc converter connected to a vacuum hose tie wrapped to a bolt. But it does the job. It swings around as I drive pointing out that my car has no exhaust pipe and plugs in.
As soon as the day after I did it I started getting complements from the neighbors, so I knew it was working.
So this morning I was stopped at a traffic light on the way to work and happened to look in the read view mirror as the driver behind me mouthed the words "oh look, that's an electric car." Now, as a EV owner, you should seize the opportunity to show the superiority of electric drive when they present themselves - at least that's my story...
I was lined up at the light next to a Porsche Boxster, so when the light turned green, I punched it. The rear wheels chirped, a whiff of burning rubber and the Porsche was in the rear view mirror. Now, the Porsche driver didn't know he was racing anyone, but, for what it was worth, I think the point was made.

Burning rubber

2009-09-23T09:34:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to get a 0-60 time on the car and I found that it's not as easy as it sounds.

First you need to find a place with a 60 mph speed limit, with light traffic, that is level for about a 1/4 mile and has a wide shoulder for you to start from. I'm also looking for a place that's along my commute or nearby so that I won't have to drive out of my way to do the test.

I found a place that is pretty close and bought a cheap stopwatch and made several attempts. Problem is, I'm better behind a wrench than behind the wheel. I shift too late, feather the accelerator too much not to mention being late with the stopwatch...

In my latest attempts I decided to just hammer it and shift at 5000 rpm and see how we do.
The first time I tried it the Zilla cut out - I started moving then, no power. After I released the acceleration and step on the juice returned. No point working the stop watch on this run.
I found that the Zilla Stall Detect was the culprit and disabled it.

The next morning I reset my stopwatch and drive out to the spot, pull to the shoulder, put it in second gear and wait for the traffic to clear. Once the coast is clear I hit the stopwatch and floor it. The motor revs and we start moving, but not too very fast - and then there is the smell of something burning. I back off the pedal and get to 60, but the stopwatch shows 14.4 seconds and the smell is now clearly burning rubber. I drive around the block and see about a ten foot strip of rubber leading off the shoulder and into the street.

So, the hammer plan obviously won't work.
I still don't have my 0-60 time, but I do have a nice strip of rubber to show for my trouble.

Visit to the scales

2009-09-19T13:44:00.000-07:00

Just made it back from the scales at the dump. I know, but I didn't have a truck scale nearby...
Anyway, after a little confusion I was able to get the guy in the booth to tell me the front total and rear weight.
The total weight (less the driver) comes to 2680 lbs. That's 564 lbs heavier than stock - not surprising with the amount of lead in the car.

The front came to 1460 and the rear to 1220 lbs. This works out to 54/46 weight distribution.

The Miata is known for it's "near perfect 50/50" weight distribution, but after a little research I found it was either 49/51 or 48/52 depending on the source. The designers of the Miata planned to even out the weight to 50/50 once the driver got in the cockpit.

I was out of the car when I did the weights, but given the extra total weight, I wouldn't expect my weight to influence the distribution by more than a point which would possibly make my car 55/45.

Charge Timer

2009-09-13T20:51:00.000-07:00

Since I'm now on a time of day meter, I need to take advantage of the lower rates after midnight by using a timer.
If I was using 110 vac I could have used a $3.00 timer - actually, probably not, but a cheaper one, just the same...
I use 220 vac so I needed to use a high end timer designed to control an electric water heater - $41 at Home Depot.
The instructions were pretty clear and wiring it up was pretty simple.
Now I'm charging at $.05 a KWH.

Shock Absorbing Stud Mounts

2009-09-12T09:46:00.000-07:00

I have a bunch of speed bumps in the parking garage at work. Even though I try to ease over them, sometimes I hit them pretty hard. I started wondering what this was doing to my electronics - like my Zivan charger and Zilla controller. . .
I ordered some rubber mounts for my vacuum pump and thought I'd order 8 of them to use on my Zivan and Zilla. They are a little tricky to install - the rubber tries to twist rather as you tighten the nuts. If you put pressure on them, the rubber compresses and won't twist allowing the nuts to tighten up nicely.

Now both my Zivan and Zilla have a little give and I won't be worried about hitting those speed bumps a bit to hard.

Discount Power

2009-09-11T00:17:00.000-07:00

Power companies have excess power in the early morning hours. There generators are running, but since everyone is asleep, most of the power isn't used. Hence, this is the best time from the power company's perspective, to charge EVs - no need for additional power plants and extra revenue for the power companies. To encourage us to use this late night charging, many power companies have time of day metering where the late night power is significantly cheaper.

The local power company, PG & E has a special rate schedule for "experimental electric vehicles" called E-9. Applying for E-9 is tricky - you can find the rate schedule and a form to apply, but it doesn't tell you where to send the form and references a E-Net application that isn't mentioned on the web site at all. I sent them an email which gave me a contact that gave me the address.

After reviewing the rates, we decide to have a second meter installed for the car - that way we aren't paying $.28instead of $.11 a KWH for household appliances during peak summer months.

Okay, the form filled out I pop in in the mail and hear nothing. Friday morning a blue truck pulls up and a guy has a work order to swamp our residential meeter with a time of day unit programmed for E-9 rates. Not what we wanted, but after talking with him, we could either have him put the house on E-9 or not, he couldn't put a second meeter in. We decided we'd give it a try for a month and see how it worked.

Now I need to put in a timer on my charger circuit so that it only kicks in after midnight...

Palo Alto EV Rally

2009-08-30T22:22:00.000-07:00

The EV Rally on Saturday August 29th was a great success. Soon after setting up the space I had a constant stream of educated, interested EV enthusiasts checking out the car. Lots of good questions comments and good words. A number of people were interested in the kit, and there were a few who were interested in a completed car rather than attempting the conversion themselves - even had one guy offer to buy the car!
Later in the afternoon I had Jerry Pohorsky, the
EAA Silicon Valley President and organizer of the event, come by and give me an award for the best classic conversion. He was very complimentary of the car and our kit.
The event was scheduled to end at 4:00 and by then the crowd was dwindling. I had a couple of people interested in a ride, so off we went. I knew I had an error on my Zilla because the check engine light was lit and the charge light wasn't, but the car ran fine so I decided to ignore the error. Once behind the wheel I noticed the needle on the tach was pointing straight down - as if it was pegged - hmmm. The car ran fine so off we went, spinning the tires out of the parking lot and on to El Camino Real. 2 blocks down and 2 blocks back and I noticed the blinkers weren't working, but the tach needle was pulsing when the blinkers were on - hmmmm again.

For the next ride I had my passenger check the brake lights before getting in and took it much easier, even when we saw a 67 Mustang GT at a stop light... We got back into the lot without insident (or a ticket). I said goodbye to my passenger and started to break down my booth while trying to figure out what whent wrong with my 12v system. The first guess was a blown fuse and that the circuit fed back through the Tach causing it's problems.

After returning home I located the blown fuse and realized I probably popped it while towing the car. I have a trailer wiring harness connected to the Miata's lights so that when I tow it to a show the tail lights and brake lights work. I must have had it wired to the tow car with the power on in both cars to blow the fuse. Once I replaced the fuse the check engine light went out, the charge light is lit and he blinkers work (yay!) the tach, however still has its needle on the wrong side of the dial. Now, when I start the car up it pegs under zero rpm. I'll have to pull the dash apart to fix it...

The Zilla is back!

2009-08-29T09:48:00.000-07:00

After what seems like forever, the Zilla controller will be back in production.
http://www.cafeelectricpress.com/blog/?cat=2

Happy day!

A trip to the BAR

2009-08-27T17:03:00.000-07:00

Part of registering an EV conversion is having your car inspected by a Referee. They aren't checking your work or to validate if the car is "road worthy" they just look under the hood to see if they can spot an ICE hiding somewhere.

I called the number listed on the DMV web page and made an appointment. The closest location was at a college campus about 11 miles away with most of it up hill. I decided to not take any chances and tow the car.

I found a flat street within a mile of the college to disengage the car from the tow vehicle and drive it into the college. There was a lot of construction going on and the signs that were to guide me to the shop were less than obvious.

The referee was waiting for me in the college parking lot, and pointed me down to his shop. He was obviously a car guy and thought the Miata was really cool. He said it sounded like a big RC Car.

I gave a quick tour to him and a couple of his helpers/students who collected from the nearby shop bays. After a long discussion about estimated miles/gallon - "if it doesn't use gas than how can you say it gets an 80 mpg equivalent?" the crowd dispersed. I'll try to stay away from math next time...
One of the other student started telling me he is working on a hydrogen fuel cell project. I started to ask him if it was true that it took 4 times the energy - but decided not to press my luck.

At any rate, I signed a number of $0 estimates similar to a working garage (except for the $0 part) and they looked, but could not find an ICE hidden anywhere.
While my certificate was being printed, the next appoitnment drove up - a RX8 that evidently had evidently too loud of an exhaust note. The referee told the RX8 owner to look at my car, which seemed to puzzle him a bit.

With the certificate in hand, I made my exit, chirping the tires.

Blocked grill and "monster teeth"

2009-08-18T10:46:00.001-07:00

Made a few changes in the grill area of the car. First of all, I bought a tow bar (from Harbor Freight) and mounting bracket (from Renenmetal) so that I can easily tow the car to events.

Miata's originally come with bracket on the sides of the grill area to tie the car down during transportation. They are known among the Miata aficionados as "baby teeth"and removing them is a mark of an enthusiast. My donor had them removed, but the tow bar mount came with "super sized" mounts. So rather than baby teeth, my car has monster teeth. I also wired up a trailer light wiring harness so the car's tail lights work while being towed.

Later, I got the bright idea to block the grill to improve the aerodynamics a bit. I bought a sheet of aluminum at the hardware store and after making a template, cut it to size. It took a while to get it to fit right. I used some leftover vacuum hose to cover the bottom lip.
I was going to paint it flat black, but I liked the aluminum look - it reminds me of an early 60's drag racer.
Seems to help as my range on the street appears to be about the same as on the highway.

Re-Fuel Event

2009-07-19T20:51:00.001-07:00

For various reasons, I wasn't able to make it to the Re-Fuel event as planned. I was really looking forward to taking the car out on the track to see what she could do, but it was not to be.
I am sure there were plenty of other electric and alternative energy cars in attendance, so that no one was too disappointed.
Hopefully I'll be able to make their next event.

Highway Cruising

2009-07-17T12:39:00.000-07:00

As most of you know who have been following this blog, my commute is pretty short. I have been taking the streets and the route has some 45, 35 and 25 mph stretches with a number of hills, stop signs and traffic lights. Now I have taken the car on the freeway a few times for test purposes but just for an exit.
Lately, when I get in the car for the drive home at the end of the workday, the SOC meter will show 95% SOC. This can be attributed to the fully charged SOC showing over 100% as the Zivan will charge the string above what Optima said for 100%. In any case, last week I decided to take the drive home on the freeway. It was a bit tense as the SOC reads zero under load and I was pulling about 300 amps at 60 mph, but it was a fun ride. After sitting for an hour the SOC showed 45% - not bad.
Over the weekend I picked up a stock Miata "under cover" - this the plastic piece that goes under the engine between the nose and the subframe. My car didn't come with one and I wanted it to keep water off the motor when driving through puddles and for aerodynamics. I also picked up a sheet of aluminum for blocking off the air intake.
This week I've been commuting on the freeway just like the big boys. I'm now pulling around 250 amps at 60 mph (not sure if this has to do with a lighter touch on the pedal or the under cover) and getting about the same SOC displays as I was taking the streets.

My explanation for this is that the distance is about the same but there are no hills or stops to waste energy on.

EV Calculator

2009-07-15T12:57:00.000-07:00

FYI - there is a handy EV calculator to help you in determining how your conversion project may turn out. I originally was told that it was pretty inaccurate, but now I see it was pretty close to reality.
I saved the EV Miata specs for your enjoyment.
Here is the link:

http://evconvert.com/tools/evcalc/?vals=veh=28:mot=12:bat=21:ctl=5:vlt=156:nst=1:dod=50:cwt=20:wtr=600:mwt=500:inc=0:wnd=0:sec=195:asp=60:rim=14:rr=0.015:bs=0.003:kwh=0.09:miles=9:

Now, it doesn't take RPM into account, which used to make me distrust the results, but just disregard the stuff about 90 mph is first gear. The Warp 9 has a red line of 8000 RPM.

Thoughts on Flywheels

2009-07-13T18:09:00.000-07:00

Back in the 70's we had a subscription to Popular Science magazine and there was a lot of interest in alternative energy. I remember reading articles on cars powered by flywheels - you'd plug them in or use a gas motor to spin it up to some outrageous RPM and then drive around until the flywheel stopped spinning. I guess the idea was you'd go to a service station when your tach showed low RPM for a quick respin and then you'd be on your way again...

So what does this have to do with my car? Well, there are two camps on flywheels on electric cars - one camp says they are good and another says they are additional unnecessary weight. I belonged to the second camp but wanted a clutch so was stuck with the flywheel. You might have read some of the early posts where I tried (in vain) to get my flywheel lightened.

Since I've been driving the car regularly, I've changed my mind. In my experience, the flywheel stores your kinetic energy (just as Popular Science described) and helps keep the car stay in motion - reducing the amps needed to maintain a given speed.

The downside is that the flywheel slows your acceleration from a standing start (since it takes a lot of energy to spin up that big heavy disk) and it slows your braking (when in gear, your brakes are not only slowing down the car but the flywheel too).

The plus side is you get to retain your clutch which makes shifting gears easier and you can always use the clutch (or neutral) when braking hard.

What's in the News?

2009-07-11T08:07:00.000-07:00

I ran across this post and it was (excuse the cliche) like a breath of fresh air:
http://www.twilightearth.com/2009/07/a-word-on-pollution-and-the-electric-vehicle/

If you read the news on the internet you probably see a lot of negative opinions about electric cars. Most just point out common assumptions and repeat them as fact.

An example of this was recently in the Morgan County News. Now I have no idea where Morgan County is, but that's not important. What is important is that when these mis-assumptions get passed off as fact they get into the popular mindset damaging the acceptance of this needed technology.

Here's another fine example - just the headline is inflammatory: Electric Cars - Kinda Stupid
This post just takes a quote from Wired and adds a rant on non-recyclable batteries - as if EVs run on alkaline energizers that can't be recharged!

Now a lot of news posts stay away from benefit statements and just report the facts - Nissan announces a new model, new battery technology, etc. and that's good, but we as EV advocates need to be concerned about popular opinion too. Popular opinion can influence funding and the legislature which can make or break a technology change like we're advocating. Right now popular opinion is on our side, but it seems to me that this position is fragile and we need to do more to defend it.

So, what's my point? It made me think that we as a group need to be more vocal. We need to quickly comment on these postings pointing out the facts and, more importantly, calling out the writer for their ignorance, laziness or their transparent negative agenda. Why do we need to quickly comment? Most blogs and news sites show comments in chronological order. Having your comment on page 3 is not going to influence anyone.

So get out there and post.
What's in the News? Hopefully you.

EV Miata on TV

2009-07-03T09:36:00.001-07:00

The local ABC affiliate did a short piece on the electric cars being shown at the Marin County Fair. I'm a little leery of dealing with the media - they don't seem to bother getting all the facts straight and are more concerned about telling a story (any story it seems) than getting the truth out, but figure it was work a shot.
Putting my leeriness aside, I took some time off from work to drive up to the fair for my chance at an interview, and it ended up being well worth it. I had a chance to talk with some of the other car owners/entrepreneurs who were showing their cars (all great people) and the reporter, Wayne Freedman, turned out to be a great guy as well. He asked good questions and seemed to understand the answers, to my surprise. I had about 5 minutes to tell my story and when it was done he asked if later they could take a ride in the car(!) Why my car instead of the Porsche speedster or Shelby Daytona replica, I don't know, but I was happy to oblige.

I hung around as he did a few more interviews then was politely told that time wouldn't allow a ride. Oh well.

The piece aired that night, and I missed it, (of course), but thanks to the internet it can be seen forever (or at least until the take it off their site). Only a few seconds of my interview made it into the final segment - kind of funny - the one line I have is about kitchen appliances...

Anyway, it's a pretty positive overall.

Here's a link to the piece - don't blink or you'll miss me...

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/technology&id=6896777

Daily driver

2009-06-25T12:49:00.000-07:00

Been a while since I posted anything on the blog, so thought I'd give a quick update.
I've been using the car to commute daily and it's been working great.
In the morning the SOC gauge shows over 100% after charging overnight. I'm estimating it takes about 6 hours to charge.
It's a 9 mile route (4.5 miles each way) that I take which has a 40 mph stretch, a few hills and a number of stop signs and traffic lights, so not "ideal" conditions, but real-world.
It will take about 300 amps to get moving on the flat and 400 - 500 if I'm going up hill. This is not a "jack rabbit" start, but not slow either, I try not to annoy other drivers ; )
It takes around 200 amps to cruise at moderate speed (20 -30mph).
When I arrive in the parking lot the SOC gauge shows 60% (which is 80% SOC since my gauge shows only the top 50%).
I don't plug in at work.
The SOC gauge shows 95% when I'm ready to drive home, since the batteries have had a chance to rest.
When I arrive home it shows 20-30% SOC (depending on how aggressively I drove it home) but if I let it sit for an hour or so, it will show as high as 60%.
Plug it in and it's ready for tomorrow.

Maker Faire

2009-06-01T08:53:00.000-07:00

The Maker Faire turned out to be a great event - I'm definitely planning to go next year.

It was a little beyond my range and, as you know from following the blog, my controller was "in the shop" so I had planned to tow it down to the event. I rented a truck and tow dolly from U-Haul and just as I had talked my neighbor into helping push the car on to the dolly, the UPS man showed up with my controller!

45 minutes later, I was driving onto the dolly. My dad helped me load and unload the car and even bought lunch along the way. We were assigned a space in a hall with 1 and a half Teslas (one was missing the body and interior), Cal Cars doing a Prius conversion and a converted dune buggy.

The SFEVA arranged for volunteers to help talk up electric cars and conversions in general which was a tremendous help. I talked to a LOT of people, some where new to the concept, some were thinking about converting a car of their own and even a few who follow this blog!

All in all it was a great event that I'll try to make an annual thing.

Batteries under glass

2009-05-27T20:11:00.000-07:00

I went to the plastic store this afternoon and picked up a 1/8" thick smoked plastic sheet. I cut the corner with the dremel to fit around the metal piece that would have covered the gas tank's filler neck, but now covers the wiring to the charge port. Then I used velcro tape to hold it down.

A little rug to cover the bald spot

2009-05-17T19:24:00.000-07:00

Had a an hour or so on Sunday and decided to do the carpet in the trunk. I took the stock carpet, marked where the battery rack was with chalk and cut it. Then I used the part I cut out to fill in where the spare tire use to be.

Next I need too get a piece of clear plastic to cover the batteries so I can use the trunk...

First trip behind a tow truck ; (

2009-05-04T13:04:00.000-07:00

(EV
Things had been going real well lately, so something was bound to go wrong...

I was on my way to work this morning - I had just shifted into 3rd at 55mph when the battery light went out and the check engine light turned on. This meant the controller had turned itself off with an error. Since I had no power, I coasted to a stop by the curb in a nearly legal parking place.

I tried to start it a couple of times without any luck. I then pulled out my laptop to see the error code from the Zilla, and it indicated the Zilla and the Hairball weren't communicating. I checked the data cable and it was in place and properly seated.

It took about an hour for the tow truck to come.

I contacted the vendor I got the Zilla from (EV Source) and they contacted Cafe Electric who after a few questions sent me an RMA number for the Zilla and Hairball.

Good news is it's not something I did, but the car will be out of commission for a bit.
; (

SFEVA meeting and a few odds and ends.

2009-05-02T15:38:00.000-07:00

Saturday I drove the car out to the SFEVA meeting at Luscious Garage. It was a bit misty out, so I had my running lights on and the wipers on occasionally. Showed the car to a couple of people after the meeting and gave a ride to a fellow EVer on the way home.
After an hour the SOC meter showed just under 60% (80%) .

I have a few items left to finish on the car, and decided to tackle them while I had the time.
I hooked up the light in the Ammeter and trimmed the hood over the instrument cluster so that it could be re-installed. Looks pretty good - like a real car instead of a science fair project.
I also hooked up the disconnect switch - one of the things I hadn't got done after reassembling the car.

Full charge and a trip to work - and back

2009-05-01T13:51:00.000-07:00

The message I got back on the charging issues from Ken at HotJuice Electric (makers of the BEQ1) indicated that the squealing battery could be ignored - it's either OK or it's toast, but continuing the charge with the voltage it's getting won't change things.

I also found out that my tires were at 40lbs. I thought they were at 50, must have misread my gauge or lost air since I re-inflated them... I noticed the tires say max pressure 50 lbs. - 55 won't hurt them then... and should make them roll a little better.

So Wednesday I decided to push ahead with a full charge. I wasn't able to start the charge until 6:00 pm as I felt I had to babysit it during the charge. I checked on it every 30 minutes (annoying my family no end) until about 11:00 when I figured I was committed anyway and just to let it finish. At 1:43 I heard the faint beep-beep of the Zivan in the garage indicating the charge was complete.

Thursday morning the batteries are all in the 13v range and I'm off to work. I planned a new route with less stops but a short 40 mph section. She does roll better and I did a better job staying off the accelerator. I got to work with an indicated SOC of 43% ( a little less than 75% in reality). I figured this would come up a bit as it sat.

By the way, the building at work set aside a primo parking place for hybrid drivers. You have to fill out a form an enter into a drawing where the winner gets to park there for a month. I filled out the form explaining that my car wasn't a hybrid but full electric and could they stick an outlet in the spot for me. I didn't expect much to happen, but figured it was worth asking. A week later I got a message that I won for the month of May! I must have been the only one to fill out the form... I replied thanking them and again explaining that my car was (still) not a hybrid, but would gladly use the parking spot.

At 12:30 the SOC meter showed 80% (90%). Not bad. Parking security put a nasty gram under my wiper explaining the spot was reserved for hybrids. I showed it to the attendant and explained that it "looks like a miata, but it's battery powered..."

At 5:30 the meter still showed 80% - I was hoping for 100% ; ).
I took the same route back home. I think I annoyed a couple of SUV drivers, but I stayed in the slow lane most of the way. I got home easily enough and after an hour the SOC meter showed 44%.
That's makes for about a 20 mile range with mediocre driving over a few hills and high-rolling-resistance low-profile tires.

Sunday Driver

2009-04-26T19:19:00.000-07:00

I wanted to get a test drive out to my work this weekend. I'm pretty sure I can make it there and back if it was flat all the way, but I have a couple of hills along the way...

Thursday and Friday i charged the pack. The two batteries that came back from the shop were fully charged, so I couldn't run the Zivan on the pack. I charged all the batteries individually until on Friday they were all in the 12.90v range. Then I ran the Zivan which quickly went into pulse charging mode, as it should.
After about an hour 11 of the BEQ1s were blinking - indicating those batteries had "filled up" and battery #12 started squealing, so I cut the power.

Sunday afternoon I checked the pack voltage and it was above 95% SOC.
I weighed my options and figured it was time for a drive.

The main objective is to get as far as I can, so I was trying to stay off the accelerator - not an easy task for me. At any rate, with one eye on the Ammeter and the other on the road, I was off.
The SOC meter isn't much help while you are pulling current. It dives down as the voltage sags and creeps up at the stop signs and while you coast down hills. Twice I pulled over to let the meter return to a stable reading. I got to within a couple of blocks from work and the SOC meter was showing 50% - meaning I had 75% left on the pack.
(BTW - my SOC meter reads the top 50% of charge, so when it reads 80% I actually have 90% and so on. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but it's actually kind of annoying. It's like setting your clock 5 minutes ahead - you find yourself constantly doing the math to convert to the actual SOC. Next time I'll just use a standard Voltmeter...)

So with 50% of my usable charge left, I turned back home. I arrived back in my garage with an indicated 20% SOC charge (you do the math).

When I put it on the Zivan, two batteries hit 14.7v in a little over an hour, while the rest are in the mid 13's. So I decided to abort the charge again.

I got a question into the BEQ1 vendor and the Zivan distributor to ask what I'm doing wrong.

Return of the Electric Miata

2009-04-19T18:13:00.000-07:00

All the parts are back from draftsperson and I had time this weekend to reassemble the car. It's a lot easier when the parts are all fabricated and ready to go - kind of like having a kit...
I took a lot of pictures for the kit's installation guide.

Update

2009-04-17T09:44:00.000-07:00

Quick update for those of you wondering "what ever happened to this car?"

Well, after having disassembled it so that the drawings for the kit could be done, I'm happy to say it is mostly reassembled. I'm hoping to have the car running once more this weekend.

I've also signed up to show the car at a couple local events.
It will be at the Maker Faire in San Mateo (CA) end of May and at the Marin County Fair in July.
If you are local, come on out - I'd love to hear what you think.

Lithium in the future?

2009-03-14T16:17:00.000-07:00

Since the car is a part while the engineering drawings are being made, I've been researching lithium batteries. I got a message lately reminding me that the price has come down quite a bit since I first wrote my FAQ on Lithium batteries too.

It does seem that Thunder Sky may be on their way to fixing their quality issues and the price is coming down. I found a couple of retailers (Elite Power for example) that offer 52 60 amp cells (equivalent to the 13 Optimas in my car) for $6240. Not bad.

The charger Elite Power offers is a HUGE thing, but I believe my Zivan can be reprogrammed for lithium. I haven't seen a good BMS system for sale though. Elite Power has a system designed to work with that big charger and Hot Juice Electric is dropping production of their BEQ boxes so that they can focus on bringing a controller to market. I'll keep looking.

Meanwhile, I'm having the kit racks tweaked a bit so that the 52 lithium cells can be installed without modification.

On to Phase 3...

2009-03-02T17:34:00.000-08:00

Well, the project is now officially in Phase 3.
Back when I started this project, the activities were part of three phases.

Phase 1 was to design and build the car.
Phase 2 was to test and drive the car
Phase 3 was to document the conversion so that a kit could be made

The third phase was originally just to promote car conversion at shows, but making the kits became more important...

At any rate, after I pulled out #2 battery to have it tested, I thought it was a good idea to start getting the battery racks drawn up so they could be duplicated. Pretty soon, all three racks were out of the car and it was nearly completely disassembled. I had intended on testing the range and 0-60 times first, but that will have to wait.

While I'm waiting on the drawings to be finalized I've been working on the installation manual. This is no easy task, but it's coming along.

Next is to find someone to test the kit in order to make sure the shop-made parts fit properly and the instructions are right. The plan is to offer the racks and brackets at cost and provide support for someone local to convert their car.

#2 is out, service disconnect is in

2009-01-24T21:11:00.000-08:00

I was not looking forward to pulling out the number two battery. It has been not holding a charge and keeping the pack from getting fully charged, so it's got to go.

I had to remove the Zivan (you can see it upside down in the upper left of the pic.), a bunch of high voltage cables, the high voltage box and it's wiring and the bracket that hold all this in place.

Once all of that was out of the way, the battery was pretty easy to pull out and set aside.

Once the battery was out I started on my next project - installing the service disconnect. The idea is be able to disconnect the battery pack from the driver seat to make it easy to service the car or in case of an accident. Some people call these "emergency disconnect" switches, but I like the "service disconnect" name - why not put a positive spin on it?

There are three ways to do this
1. run high voltage wires under the dash to a breaker or switch.
2. put a low voltage switch on the dash to open a contactor
3. install a mechanical cable that activates a breaker under the hood.

Though I had originally planned on using option 1 and placing the breaker under the dash, I realized the high voltage cables really don't belong under there. I went with the 3rd option as it was the simplest, least expensive and safest (compared to #1).

I bought a choke cable at Kragen for around $5. I mounted the "pull" side on the tunnel near the bottom of the dash. This position provided the most room for my big feet...

I needed to mount the cable below the breaker. I ended up bolting an angle iron to one of the top rack's mounts. The cable itself was looped through a hole in the breaker's lever. The cable then looped together where a cable clamp to hold it in place.

It works good. It doesn't take much of a pull to pop the breaker, and just a little push to reconnect the pack. The breaker is spring loaded and does most of the work.

Survey says!

2009-01-18T13:38:00.000-08:00

I've gotten a number of questions about providing a conversion kit for the Miata so back in August of last year I posted a survey to determine what kind of kit people were interested in. The link was on all pages of the main www.evmiata.com site and asked you to vote for the components, battery and kit type that you'd like to see.

The choices were:

components

156v WarP/Zilla
144v WarP/Curtis
144v WarP/Belktronix
144v Selectria

Batteries

AGM
Lithium
Flooded lead acid

Kit Type

Basic - Battery racks, brackets, motor mount and adapter
Standard - all the above plus motor charger, controller and associated parts
Complete - all the above plus bolts, cable ties and pre-terminated cables

The results were pretty impressive:

405 total surveys taken
180 votes (45%) went with the 156v WarP/Zilla route
29 votes (7%) went with the 144v WarP/Curtis route
57 votes (14%) went with the 144v WarP/Belktronix route
137 votes (34%) went with the 144v Solectria route

Of those voting for the 156v WarP/Zilla...

102 votes (57%) were for AGM
65 votes (36%) were for Lithium
13 votes (7%) were for Flooded

And for those voting for 156v WarP/Zilla with AGM...

27 votes (26%) were for Basic kits
26 votes (25%) were for Standard kits
49 votes (48%) were for Complete kits

So, as they say in politics, the people have spoken.
I'm closing down the survey today.

Thanks to all of you who participated in the survey!

The Battery Story

2009-01-15T22:45:00.000-08:00

I realized that the battery problems I've been having may not make a lot of sense unless you know the full story - so I thought I'd give you all a recap and some lessons learned so that you may avoid learning them like me.

I had 13 Optima D34M Blue tops delivered before I was ready for them to be installed. This wasn't a bad thing, in itself...
You are supposed to test the motor when it's first installed to confirm that the flywheel, clutch and the motor all all in working order. I put the car in neutral and since the batteries were there, I jumpered one of them to the motor leads. It worked fine, but I put a drain on one of the batteries and now they were no longer balanced.

Lesson #1 - use your starting battery for this test - not one of your pack batteries.

Next was a little mishap I had wiring up the batteries. The details are in a post called "the meltdown", but the end result was 5 batteries were shorted out with one of them taking the brunt of the damage. One was replaced (it was the original #4) but the others are still in the pack and now out of balance with the rest of the pack.

Lesson #2 - don't be a numskull and short out your pack - or, more correctly, don't leave loose ends of cables on your batteries. Each cable should have both ends connected before you move on to the next. Don't leave one end unterminated while you go onto the next cable.

With the pack out of balance, I began to charge each battery individually. This is the way to do it, but you should use an automatic battery charger with an AGM setting. I used a manual charger, and though it worked most of the time just fine... well you get the picture.

Lesson #3 - invest in an automatic battery charger with an AGM setting for individual charging.

I have heard people say that Optima doesn't have the best quality control and that one should expect a battery or two to fail in a pack, and I can say the 2 that have been troublesome so far (#5 and #2) were not overcharged by the manual charger. But, if I had not put the pack so far out of balance I don't believe I would still be dealing with battery issues today.
And that, I think, that is the big lesson.

Pressed into service

2009-01-12T22:32:00.000-08:00

My wife called me at work yesterday to say her car broke. She wasn't too far from home when something went ding (her words) and her battery light came on, then her power steering was gone and then it started to overheat.
Any guesses?
Fan belt, maybe?
I got home at looked under the hood and the belt was there, and in one piece, but it was all wrapped up - looks like an idler pulley broke off.
It was 6:30 at night and I took the Miata down to Kragen for some ICE parts.
Kinda ironic, I guess...
I didn't have a chance to put them in that night, so the Miata got to run errands and drop our daughter off at school. She enjoyed riding in it, not because it's quiet or quick or emission free, but because she can sit in the front. Anyway these little trips confirmed my verdict on #2 - she's bad. So replacing her will be my project for the weekend.
Since I will have everything stripped down up front to pull the battery, I invited the draftsperson (do they still go by that?) over to start the drawings for the kit. Might as well take advantage of the situation...
I also might install the emergency disconnect cable. I bought a choke cable that I was going to connect to the main circuit breaker so that I could disconnect the pack from the driver seat. It's been sitting on the toolbench. Maybe I'll have a chance to connect it this weekend too.

Sunday driver

2009-01-11T22:12:00.000-08:00

Friday and Saturday I charged batteries - in between running errands and watching kids. But the pack is charged - though #2 is still acting a little flaky. I noticed that the pack looses voltage over time and am starting to suspect the Zivan may be putting a slight load on it. I've been leaving it unplugged from the pack to test my theory.

So around 2:00 Today the pack was fairly charged. My SOC gauge showed 95% which is closer to 98% in the real world, so I'm off. First thing I noticed in that the vacuum pump isn't working, but no matter, I'll just stand on the brakes like we used to do in the old days. I still have the tach set to display amps, and what a difference that makes in your driving style - you can't help but accelerate slowly and coast into intersections. They need to put something like it on gas cars - like an MPG gauge. Didn't make any friends with the other drivers, though. I took a mile and a half loop and came back to the garage to check things out. #2 is at 12.35v where the rest of the pack is in the high 12.4 to 12.5. I plugged the Zivan in and gave it some juice, but #2 came up to 15.6v pretty fast - the rest of the pack was in the 14v range when I had to abort the charge to save #2 from being overcharged.

I'm thinking #2 needs to go.

I let her rest for a bit then took her out for another drive. This was about a 3 mile loop (the trip odometer isn't working - gotta add that to my list). I took some streets with bike lanes and it sure confused the cyclists having a silent car running with them. I came back home with about a 70% SOC - not too bad. #2 was the lowest about a tenth of a volt below the rest of the pack, and again I had to abort the charge when #2 reached 15.6v.

#2 is in the most in accessible place in the pack - in the front of the nose rack on the driver side. I'll need to pull out the Zivan, all the high voltage cables to the box, pull the gauge, contactor and relay connections remove the high voltage box and bracket, then pull out #1 so that I can get to #2! It's gonna take me a full day just to get her out.

New #5

2009-01-09T22:04:00.000-08:00

Today the replacement for the bad battery, #5 arrived. It was delivered to my door, no charge. Can't complain about that. I've been charging the rest of the pack up so that I can do some road testing with a good pack. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be on the road with 100% SOC.

Running out of things to do...

2009-01-04T19:48:00.000-08:00

That sounds good doesn't it?
Today I went through my "Todo" list I made over the break...

#1 - Bleed clutch. I bled the clutch once before, but it still wasn't working. This isn't that bad in an EV, since there isn't much shifting involved, but I will definitely need a clutch to get my 0-60 time. I have a self bleeder kit (a plastic bag and a hose) so, once I took battery #6 out and cold see the clutch cylinder, it took maybe 10 minutes.

#2 - fix leaky (heater) hose. I'm using the heater core as a radiator/reservoir for the Zilla. Only problem is, I didn't plan for this and bent up the metal end when I pulled the engine. I spent 15 minutes making the leaky one rounder so that the hose clamp would seal.

#3 - Pull 12v lead to temp gauge. Before the break I troubleshooted the temperature gauge and found out my 12v supply wasn't working. I pulled a new wire from the fuse box to the instrument panel and wired it up.

#4 - Fix Tach. The tach hasn't worked and I've been suspicious of the sending unit. It is a magnet thing that looks like a plastic cup that is supposed to fit on the nose of the motor. Mine didn't exactly fit, so i added some washers to the mount so that it would. It's buried under Zivan, so fixing it is going to be tough... First thing they teach you in mechanic school (I'm told) is to start with the easy stuff, and work up to the hard. The easy thing is to see if some knucklehead mis-wired it at the hairball. Yup. White and Red were reversed. To test it out, I'll need to put the batteries back in and cable them up. Easier said then done, but they're in and I left the handle on #5 so I can easily pull her out later. I turned the key on, step on the throttle and the tach needle starts to wobble up the gauge - nice!

#5 Fix ammeter. Like the Tach, the ammeter has never worked, but I was on a roll. I started by setting my meter to millivolts and connecting it to the shunt (this is hidden in the high voltage box). I'm not sure what it's supposed to read, but the shunt is rated at 50 mv, so I'm guessing it should show 0-50 mv on the meter. I put the meter where I could see it from the driver seat and gave her some juice. The meter showed 7, 11, then 17 mv, which was enough for me. I then did the same test on the wires at the instrument panel with the same result. Hmmmm. Maybe the ammeter is bad? I decided there were 3 possibilities

Wrong shunt. But they only come in 24, 50 and 100 mv, so I would think the gauge would still read something, even if the shunt was the wrong value...
One or both Leads fell off the ammeter, I pulled out the panel and removed the ammeter - all were connected and even did a continuity test on the leads to double check my crimping was good.
Defective gauge. I read the instructions from Westach, but there were no trouble shooting tips other than reversing the polarity if the needle goes the wrong way, but my needle never moves. I'll email them to see if there is another test...

The Zilla has a setting to display amps on the Tach. Later, when I had the gauges back in I tried it out. Works pretty good. The Zilla manual says tach shows the amps x 10.

#6 Fix light in temperature gauge. The light stopped working in the temp gauge, and since I has the panel out I removed it and found the light had slipped half way out of the gauge. That was easy. While I was at it, this gauge never fit in right, so I spent some time adjusting the mounting clamp so that it didn't hit anything in the panel. Fits nice now - no squeezing and cussing needed...

Now I was seriously running out of things to do while the batteries charge...
I decided to fix the driver side courtesy light. Some adjustments and contact cleaner and she works!
This is getting bad...

#7 Fix remote charge indicator. As you might remember, I put a charge indicator in the charge port (where the gas used to go) so you could easily monitor your charge without popping the hood. I had to extend the cable to get it to reach and it does light, but I noticed the LED blinked red when it should be blinking yellow... maybe a short? I'm hoping it's not the splice I did, if it is, then I got to pull the wiring out of the conduit under the car to fix it.
Starting with the easy stuff, I pull out the LED from the housing to check my soldering job. Well, the wires got all twisted up in the housing and shorted out. A little electrical tape should do the trick... I'm still charging the batteries individually, so I can't test it out yet, but I'm going to call it fixed just the same.

Back to the batteries...
I had charged up all the batteries up front before using the motor to test the ammeter and the tach. When I checked them with the meter, they were down around 12.6 where they had been above 12.8. One, #2, was at 12.45! That's a pretty substantial drop for not even driving the car.
I check the trunk rack and they were all around 12.8. Is it my bad #5 battery dragging down the batteries in the front racks? Or do I have more bad batteries? I have been suspicious of #2, maybe she's gone bad too? If I had the money, I would replace the whole lot of 'em.
We'll see what happens after #5 is replaced.

Happy New Year!

2009-01-03T19:26:00.000-08:00

I'm back.
and am anxious to finish this project. There isn't a lot left to do, just a few little things that need to be done...

First, the batteries. For the most part, they held their charge pretty well over the last 2 weeks. I still have the one bad battery, number 5, that needs to be replaced, but while I'm waiting, I'll charge up her sisters...

The only really new thing I have on my list is the fuse box. I originally had the Zilla and the vacuum pump wired to the same circuit. Later I added the Iota relay (so that it was only active when the key was on) to the same circuit and realized this was getting to be a bad thing. If the pump or relay blew, or shorted out for whatever reason, the Zilla would too. I bought a cheap fuse box on eBay before the break and today, mounted it on the firewall and wired it up.

While I was messing with the wiring I decided to tackle my wiring harness that snakes around the nose rack. It had gotten pretty messy from adding and moving wires after I had tie wrapped it all down and it's been bothering me. In case it's not clear enough from that comment, I have a *thing* about wires - OCD. It started when I worked at the phone company. Anyway, I had to disconnect a lot of the wiring and one cable, but after an hour and a half, it was nice and clean - no wires wrapped around each other and all covered in the wiring loom.

Happy Holidays to all!

2008-12-24T15:30:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Kwanzaa, or whatever you celebrate. I'm away for the holidays, but have big plans to get the Miata fully debugged and on the road when I return.

All the best to all of you!

New YouTube video - Count Down to Blast-Off!

2008-12-20T11:16:00.000-08:00

I asked my brother to put together a YouTube using some of my test drive footage. The idea was to have a cheesy sci-fi theme. I love the Thunderbirds opening and the Space Speed Indicator with everyone's faces distorted by the high speed. We decided not to use song so that you could hear the car's whine.

Hope you like it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_tEWdpKm98

A few odds and ends

2008-12-14T21:48:00.000-08:00

It's a rainy Sunday and while the batteries are being fed, I'm doing a little "debugging."

I noticed that the most negative cable coming from the trunk rack is rubbing just a little on the steering column. So I disconnected and re-routed it.

I spent some time on my experimental passive cooling system for the Zilla. The idea is to reuse the heater core since it is right by the Zilla. First step is to use it as a reservoir and see if that is enough to keep the Zilla happy. Second step, if this fails, is to add a pump to create a little circulation. Either way, I'm going to need the temp gauge to work...

I did some extensive testing on my temperature gauge. It comes out it was the 12v lead going to the gauge that wasn't right - it showed 12v, but only until the key was on... I also found out you can't test the sending unit by heating it up with a soldering gun while it's against a heat sink. The heat sink soaks up all the heat - like I didn't know that... I ended up connecting a 12v jumper to the Iota and removing the sending unit and heating it with a solder gun and got the gauge to work. Instead of fishing for another 12v source on the instrument panel, I think I'll run a new wire, that way I'll know it works.

I also have to hook up the relay for the Iota with a new 12v lead off the key. That will make 4 devices off the key switch - the hairball, the vacuum pump, the temp gauge and the Iota relay. I think it's safe to say I need a fuse box. Found one on eBay that handled 4 fuses, looked good and was under $10!

Probably won't get a chance to install it until after new years...

New 12v charger and DC/DC Relay

2008-12-13T19:59:00.000-08:00

Over the week since my drive to the SFEVA meeting, I've been charging the batteries one at a time with my manual charger.

On Friday I decided to invest in a new 12v battery charger. Some of the new ones have AGM settings on them that tailor the charging pattern to the AGM's needs. It sure would beat having my charger on a timer.
Saturday I went down to Sears to pick one up. It being the holidays, this was not easy. None were in the store and, of course, the sales people were less than helpful. I did finally find them in the auto services building out in the parking lot. It took me a little experimenting, but I found that if i used the 2 amp setting it would bring the voltage up to 14.6 before going into a 13.5 volt maintenance mode. This matched what Optima recommends on their web site, and seemed to work pretty well. Not having to check the charger every hour was a big relief too.

While charging the batteries I installed the relay I got to control the DC/DC converter. You don't want it running all the time as it will drain your battery pack. I thought I could hook it up to the switched side of the contactor (the side that is only hot when the car is running) but the Zilla didn't like that. I got a relay that has a 12v coil ans can switch up to 250v for less than $20 and a single gang plastic junction box to put it in. One side of the coil is ground the other side will come off the key switch.

Looks pretty good, no?

Bad Boy

2008-12-11T07:29:00.000-08:00

I've been suspecting that my #5 battery was bad for a while. This was the replacement battery for the one that was damaged in "the meltdown". I was suspicious because it charges up really fast and discharges just as fast. And when using the Zivan, it would pull down more voltage than the others, even though its indicated State of Charge was the same. On the way back from the SFEVA meeting it was hot and had dropped to 10.96v - way below what it should have been. It had also blown the fuse on the BEQ1.
I messaged Ken at Hot Juice Electric (the maker of the BEQ1 equalizers I'm using) to confirm my suspicion of the defective battery. He agreed is was bad and I called the battery dealer. I got someone on the phone who quickly told me to bring it in. After describing the symptoms he agreed that they would do a swap. The details will have to wait for after I return from Xmas holiday, but I have high hopes that replacing this bad boy will fix my charging problems...

Follow up KFOG interview

2008-12-07T22:58:00.000-08:00

I got a call from my friend, Peter Finch, who does the Fog Files on a local radio station, KFOG. He wanted to do a follow up interview now that the car was running (and watch the '9er game). We set a time for Sunday just before game time for a chat and a quick drive. After yesterday at the SFEVA meeting, I wasn't planning on driving it very far...
He showed up and pulled out a huge microphone and even huger digital recorder and, after I backed it out of the garage, got in. He asked a few questions as I pulled out, then I asked him if he had his seat belt on and punched it. To be honest, we were going downhill, but I think it made an impression on him. We then drove maybe a 10 block loop while a few people stared at the car making the funny noise driving around with a microphone in the drivers face.
We got back to the house and plugged the car in so he could record the charger doing it's thing (those radio people like stuff like that). I gave him a run down of the components and he mentioned that it all looks too simple which led him to ask why I thought Detroit couldn't build them...

Anyway, I don't think I said anything stupid this time, so it ought to be a pretty good segment.
Not sure when it's going to air, but I'll post a link when it does.

EV Miata at the SFEVA meeting

2008-12-06T21:41:00.000-08:00

Today is the day.
I have had a string of target dates for getting the car done, but today is the day I promised to take it down to the SF Electric Vehicle Association meeting. The batteries aren't terribly balanced, but good enough for, say 98% state of charge (SOC). I made some progress on the gauges, but still no ammeter, tach or temperature gauge. I was going to hook up the Zilla's cooling system too, but that was not to be.

So, mostly charged and with just a speedo and SOC gauge, I was off.
As this was the first drive farther than around the block, I took my time and stuck to the streets. It wasn't too far, less than 5 miles I figured, so it should make it there and back easy - and it mostly did.

The SOC gauge drooped precariously each time I stepped on the juice (AKA the accelerator). Without the ammeter it was hard to drive it carefully, but I gave it my best. At about 4 blocks away the "Check Engine" light came on. The Zilla uses this to tell you that something is wrong, but I couldn't tell if the controller was overheating, the battery voltage was too low or something else was happening. I pulled over and checked the temperature of the controller using a manual temperature sensor - I stuck my hand on it - and it was just warm. The SOC gauge was showing 50% -which, because it only show the "usable" 50% of the pack, indicated the pack was at 75% SOC - not bad. The wiring under the hood looked fine and nothing smelled hot, so off I went. I found Luscious Garage (great place), where the meeting is held each week and pulled in to the drive. Dale, the president, and a few of the club members were out front around a RAV4 EV. After chatting a bit I broke out my palm to read the Zilla error code - d'oh, the SLI battery was low again! This is the same error that caused the car to limp up the street in the "It's Alive" video... Maybe I need to replace that battery...

Anyway, I got to talk a little about the project in the meeting and got to show my handy work off to some people who "got it" - very nice.

One of the long time members let me know that it takes about 3 cycles to get your pack "broken in." Good info.

After the meeting was over, I borrowed a Luscious charger to juice up my SLI battery. In hooking it up I found the negative clamp had worked it's way loose. So maybe the battery was still good? Maybe. At any rate, the Zilla error was soon cleared.

The SOC gauge was now showing 30% (65%) and I was off.
The SOC gauge which had earlier been bouncing about was now spending most of it's time staying around zero. Not good. The car ran well, though, no rattles or other strange noises, just the whine of the motor. Why do people want to play amplified gas car nosies in an EV?

I drove by a motorcycle club with a guy hanging our front. I think he was drinking out of a paper bag, but I could be wrong. Anyway, I pulled up the red light and stopped. Absolute silence.
He shouted "Why is your car making that whine?"
Me: "eh, it's electric."
Him: "Did you do that yourself?"
Me: Expecting now to be told I was a fool to spend a year and $13,ooo with gas prices now under $2, I simply answered, "Yup." and prayed the light would change.
Him: "Very cool."
Ah, this is nice. Even bad-boy bikers drinking out of a bag on the street corner appreciate an electric car conversion. Maybe things are changing...

Not too much longer down the road the "check engine" light makes a return appearance - and this time it's blinking. I recognize this as the Zilla trying to tell me my pack voltage is dangerously low. I pull off onto a side street and let the car sit while I try to act normal.
After what seems like 30 minutes, but was probably less than 10, the SOC is showing 10% and I'm off again. Slow-ly. I'm now less than 5 blocks from home and decide to go for it.

Once I get home I pop the hood and start reading voltages off the batteries: 12.06, 12.07, 12.11... About 40% SOC, not good.
One battery, #5, was showing 10.96 volts. That's not just dead, that's off the chart dead.
I gave it a little charge at 6 amps to bring it up into the 12 volt range and turned on the Zivan. Everything seemed fine, but, after about an hour, #5 was showing 15.5 volts, (15.6 is the limit) where the rest were all around 13+ volts. I turn off the Zivan and head upstairs.
That's enough for one day...

Owe you all an update...

2008-11-30T22:27:00.000-08:00

I realize it's been a while since I have updated the blog. Over the last couple of weekends I got the batteries almost balanced, I reworked the instrument cluster, got the hood reinstalled and a bunch of minor little things.

Balancing the batteries has been a huge pain. I did get to learn a lot of things NOT to do.

Don't expect that two batteries with similar idle voltage readings have the same state of charge. (I lost a good two weeks learning this one).
Don't expect a standard battery charger to hold up to charging 13 batteries multiple times over 3 weeks.
Don't expect your timer to not fail when you aren't watching

1. I thought that if I got all the batteries to within a tenth of a volt that they would all be relatively the same state of charge and I could then use the Zivan to charge them up to 100%.
Wrong.
Some were always getting over charged while others got undercharged - the Equalizers would start blinking and batteries would begin to hiss.
The right way to do this is to bring them all up to 100% first. And measure the voltage THE NEXT DAY - not in an hour or even two hours after charging. I have a couple of batteries that will slowly drop over night back to where they started. Multiple long charges was the only way to get them up to capacity and stay there.

2. I have a good charger for my ICE car. It has a 6 amp and 2 amp setting with an ammeter on the front. After using it constantly, though, I noticed some batteries weren't charging. Comes out the crimp connection on the positive clamp had worked it's way loose. I would connect it up to the battery, read the voltage, plug in the charger and see the voltage rise, but when I returned the voltage was back where I started. At first I thought the battery was being difficult... Then I found the wiring problem.

3. My charger doesn't shut off by itself. To avoid overcharging, I used an appliance timer set to an hour and a half. This was working pretty well until I got too confident and didn't check on it. Naturally, by the time I did check on it, the timer was stuck (it's little motor was overheating) and my battery was overcharged and hissing. The lesson here is to use a timer, but always check - don't assume.

In the end, I got them all above 12.84 volts (100% SOC) and ran the Zivan for a half hour or so. The Zivan did it's pulse charging thing, and everybody appears to have survived.

While all this battery baby-sitting was going on, I did disassemble the instrument cluster to fix the lamp problem and some of the wiring. I was trying to pull 12v and GND from the back of the cluster for the temperature gauge, but it still doesn't work right. My new plan is to grab GND from the dash and 12v from the alternator light (the Zilla uses this as a contactor closed indication, so it's on when ever the car is operational). That should do it. I'll check the ammeter and tach after this.

The hood ended up being trickier than I thought it would be. First, the box I put the high voltage components in was a little too tall. It fit under the hood with the top off, so I only needed to take less than a 1/4 inch off of it. I had plenty of room, so I went for 1/2 inch just to make sure there were nothing banging when I hit a bump.
I cut the top edge of the front down with my Dremel. The plastic cut easily, but was so hit it would melt back together after the blade passed by. I only broke three blades dealing with this. I decided to cut the sides at an angle so that the back side of the box was not cut - mainly this was to save me time, but it also looked better angled - it looks more like it was designed to go under the hood.
I hadn't thought about the hood prop rod. The stock mount was below the top of the high voltage box, and if I just bent the rod to go over the box, it would hit part of the headlight bracket and never reach the hood. I ended up mounting it to the back of the headlight bracket and after straightening it out, putting a bend in it to lie over the top of the high voltage box when down. Of course, this made the clip that the for end of the rod too low. I ended up using an unused wiring mount to mold down the end of the rod.
The hood went back in place pretty easily - it's aluminum, so you don't need to get a neighbor to help. The only thing that didn't align properly were the headlight covers. Comes out the back side of the covers doesn't have any support, so every time you lean on them, they drop a bit. I carefully finessed these back up into position and it looks like stock.

Now the only way you know it's electric is from the lack of a exhaust pipe and the buzz it makes as it drives by...

Gauges again

2008-11-16T19:53:00.000-08:00

I have four main things to finish on the car:

Get the full charge on the batteries. This first requires that I get them balanced.
Install the instruments
Fix the clutch (new on the list since yesterday)
Attach the hood and prop rod (this one should be easy)

While I was charging batteries I set out to tackle the instruments.
Last week I took a template of the plastic piece I needed to cover the original gauges that I was keeping (tach, speedo and idiot lights) the temp, fuel and oil pressure gauges were replaced an ammeter, State of Charge meter and a temperature gauge for the Zilla. And yes, I could have reused the old temperature gauge, but I think it would have looked funny.

At any rate, The plastic cover fit pretty well it just needed a few adjustments with the Dremel. I hooked up light kit and fed the wires through some holes I cut in the sides and crimped on some connectors. The lights had to be connected to the one in the instrument cluster so that the dimmer would work right. I traced out the wires and soldered a pair of flywires to the circuit board for these. These are the two black wires running across the back of the cluster in the picture. So far so good.

I had fed the wires through the firewall and up to the where the cluster goes earlier, Now I just needed to crimp connectors on them. Here's a tip: make the connectors all the same just in case you mess up the wiring. I made all the instrument connectors female and all the wire side male. And, I thought the blue went to the SOC meter, when it went to the Ammeter... Works out nice when you plan to make mistakes. ; )

Once I got them in, the SOC meter started working, but nothing on the ammeter. I tried reversing the polarity but still nothing. The temp gauge didn't move, but the Zilla was still cool to the touch after a couple of drives, so maybe it was okay.
Next I tried the lights and, the temp gauge went up when the lights went on. Hmmmm, must have the ground or the positive leads wrong. When I turned the key on with lights lit, the temp gauge bottoms out like the polarity is wrong.

So, of the 5 gauges...

The tach doesn't work, but it lights up
the SOC works, but the light is too close to the face and lights a corner of it up
the speedo works and lights up fine
the ammeter doesn't work, but lights up
the temp gauge is mis-wired, but it lights

So, the cluster needs to come out for a little reworking...

I had a nice visit with a fellow Miata converter. He is using an ADC with a Curtis and 15 8 volt batteries. Funny thing is, he lives about a mile from me. What I thought was really interesting is that he took his gas tank out from the top - he cut away the sheet metal with a sawzall and lifted it out. Pretty cool. I'm going to try to go look at his car later.

Drive time!

2008-11-15T16:38:00.000-08:00

I finally got the car on the road today! Maybe I should have waited until all the batteries were equalized and fully charged, but I didn't.
I've been stealing time this week charging the batteries one at a time and trying to track down an error the Zilla was giving me. I learned 2 things:
#2 Don't connect the DC/DC converter to the switched side of the contactor or the Zilla won't be able to pre-charge properly.
#1 (most importantly) don't bug Otmar with these kinds of questions unless you bought the Zilla directly from him. I thought it was something stupid I did (which it was) but it took too long to sort out and Otmar got a little peeved that I was wasting his time when technically I should have gone to Ryan at EV Source for help.

I was pretty excited to get it back on the road again, so took it for a quick run, then I had my daughter get in the car with me, then my wife wanted to drive it around the block...

I'll try to edit the videos and get them up to YouTube this week.

A couple things I noticed while driving:
- the clutch isn't working. Not a big problem as there isn't a lot of shifting at speed in an EV unless you are on the highway, which is not in my immediate plans.
- it's pretty fast. My runs were uphill at a sight grade and I could easily burn rubber
- I kept thinking i had a flat. The tires are pretty sticky and at low speed all you hear is tire sounds. That with the manual steering (with an extra 100+ pounds in the nose) makes it feel like the tires are flat. Once you step on it, though,the feeling goes away.
- it makes a nice wooshing/whirring noise like a jet but not nearly as loud. Not sure how much of this are my tires...

I don't have the gauges in it, so I won't be taking it to the Green Fair we have today. I don't want to have to tow it home.

Little this, little that...

2008-11-09T21:39:00.000-08:00

Didn't have much time to work in the car this weekend, but I did sneak off to the garage a few times. The constant battery charging was the major activity this time. The pack is out of balance and I find myself charging each battery with a 6 amp 12 volt charger that needs constant monitoring. I'm trying to get them all within a tenth of a volt so that the Zivan and BEQ1s can do their job, but so far this has proven - what's the word - elusive.
At the moment, I have two in the 12.6 range five in the 12.7 range, 4 in the 12.8 range and one lone cowboy hanging in around 12.92. My plan is to bring the 12.6s into the 12.7 or 12.8 range and hopefully, that 12.92 will drop into the 12.8 range on it's own. If not, I may jumper it to the SLI battery and do the headlight trick again...
I'm a little concerned that one of the 12.6s doesn't seem to hold a charge well, but won't worry about it too much right now.
Both the hissing batteries seem to charge up and hold a charge well enough, so we may be okay there.
I did take a trip to a plastic store to have the cover for the gauges made. I made a template out of construction paper. It should be ready on Tuesday.
I also got some 9' of wire for the ammeter and SOC gauges. The wire that comes with the gauges is 16 gauge stranded, and I let the guy at the hardware store talk me into 18 gauge solid. His argument was that it was to short a run for a resistance to be built up. Maybe so, but getting the solid wire into the wiring loom was a major hassle. Next time I'll order 16 gauge stranded on the 'net.
I've been noticing the Zilla hairball is showing an error and hooked up my laptop to see what it was. It's error 1131 - Shorted/Loaded Controller during precharge. There's no info in the manual, or on line on how to troubleshoot this, but I have faith that Otmar will help me out.

Out of balance (still)

2008-11-06T21:52:00.001-08:00

My new Fluke came in the mail yesterday. Now I can see what's really going on with my batteries and it aint pretty.
Last time I ran the charger I noticed two batteries where hissing. This is bad news for AGM batteries as it means the valve is open and they are off gassing. Since they are sealed, there is no way to refill them. I did some checking on line and some people seem to think that it doesn't necessarily mean the battery is bad.
We'll have to see.
Here is the last set of reading I did:
#1 12.38
#2 12.59
#3 12.36
#4 12.41
#5 13.13 (hissing)
#6 12.63
#7 12.50 (hissing)
#8 12.67
#9 12.60
#10 12.45
#11 12.66
#12 12.44
#13 12.45

I've been emailing Ken at HotJuiceElectric (the makers of the BEQ1) who has been real helpful.
He's telling me the BEQ1s won't balance the pack, but keep it balanced. His suggestion is to charge them all up one at a time until they show 13.2 volts each. I was hoping to avoid this since it may take me DAYS to get them to this point, but it looks like I won't have much choice in the matter.
Ugh.

Out of balance

2008-11-02T21:26:00.000-08:00

I'm having trouble getting the batteries in balance so that they can be charged.
When I fire up the charger, I get some BEQ1s lighting up yellow and in 90 seconds one goes red indicating overheating.
Some batteries are around 13 volts and some are just under 12. They should be 13.2 volts when fully charged, and they are shipped charged. I blame this on my shorting out of the nose rack that melted one of the batteries. I think that drained the other 3 in the pack and the replacement battery has a higher charge.
My plan is to charge the low ones one at a time with a 12 volt charger and drain the high one a bit by connecting it to the SLI battery and turn on the headlights.
My cheap meter isn't exact enough for me to tell what's really going on, so I ordered a Fluke on eBay.
More on this later...

While I was charging and draining the batteries I did some more wiring.
I traced out the wire to the Tach and hooked it up to the Zilla's Hairball and ran a new wire from the dash down to the hairball for the Check Engine light. The stock wiring for Check Engine goes to the ECU, which was located under the front floor board on the passenger side. Doesn't do me any good there, so a new wire was in order.

I did a little more dressing of the wires after that.

With these last two wires hooked up I could finally chop out the rest of the wiring harness. This actually was kinda fun. After chopping, I wrapped up the ends with tape so that they won't short anything out. It looks a lot cleaner and there won't be anything to rattle around when I hit a bump.

Remote charge indicator

2008-11-01T21:13:00.000-07:00

I didn't have a lot of time to mess with the car this weekend, but got a bit done on Saturday. I've been having troubles with balancing the battery pack (one battery in the top rack is overcharged), and it occurred to me that this may be an answer to another problem. On and off, I've been looking for suitable wiring to extend the temperature sensor and remote LED for the Zivan so they reach to the back of the car. Since a battery up front is running hot, I could put the sensor on it and only have to extend the LED indicator. The LED is 3 color, so it needs 3 wires. I guesstimated I needed to add 6 feet so I cut 7 feet of 4 pair , doubled up the leads for less resistance and soldered them to the original cable. I put in a pull string when I pushed the 220 volt cable through the PVC pipe that acts as the wiring conduit, so pulling in this cable was pretty easy... I should have cut 8 feet, though because I only had about 6 inches to work with when soldering the wiring to the LED.
It all worked out though. It looks pretty slick as the whole cap lights up with the LED, though you can't really see this in the picture because of the flash. One thing I found out - the indicator is disabled on the charger when you plug in the remote. Would be nice if they both worked.

Almost legal

2008-10-30T09:34:00.000-07:00

I talked my wife into giving me a lift to the DMV this morning to register the Miata. You are supposed to register the car right after you buy it, but since it wasn't going anywhere, I didn't think it was a problem. The DMV doesn't see it that way and hit me with about $36 in fines.
Oh well.
They didn't have any problem with it being electric. The woman working the desk said she just needed to enter the letter 'E' someplace to indicate it was electric. I have to schedule an inspection to get the requirement for smog (emissions) checks waved. I think they want to poke around to be sure I'm not hiding a gas engine somewhere under the batteries ; )

They gave me a temporary permit that's good until January 31 - which explains the big number '1' in the pink sticker on the windshield.

Wiring, wiring and some charging questions...

2008-10-26T22:10:00.000-07:00

I started out today by returning the crimper and vacuum tester, then a quick trip to Lowes for some electrical parts for adding a 220 outlet. I was originally thinking of going with a 30 amp 110 outlet for the Zivan, but the distributor recommended 220vac for the input saying it would make the Optimas last longer.
When you can choose both the outlet and the inlet (the part on the car) you have a ton of options. I decided to go with the L6-20 because it's locking (no cables falling out by mistake) it's reasonably priced and I could get a pre-made 15' cord for $25. BTW, there is a proposed standard inlet/cable combo that I did consider - but it's way expensive. I figure if it does become a standard, I'll make a cable up.
Putting it all together was straight forward. Plugged the car in, and the Zivan beeped a couple times, it's fans spun up and charging commenced. A few of the BEQ1s had their yellow LEDs lit, which made sense because the pack shouldn't need much of a charge. Then after a bit one lit it's red over temp LED. This BEQ was hot and the manual says to shut the charger down when this happens. I did a little trouble shooting and determined that this battery was the replacement for the one I toasted. It shows 13.3 volts where the rest of the pack is showing 11.9 to 12.4 volts.
So, until I figure out a remedy, there will be no charging.

Next I cleaned up the under hood wiring. I put in a split loom over the wiring to make my wiring look more stock. A word of advice - put the loom in first, then run the wires. Do not put the wires in then try to squeeze the loom over them - like I did. It was a long frustrating experience, but I finally got it in place and it looks good.

I had a little more time, so I relocated the horn. The old location would hit the nose rack, so I drilled a hole inside of the bumper in the gap between the sides of the nose rack. Fits real nice and the stock wiring even reaches.

The charger

2008-10-19T22:21:00.000-07:00

The big job on Sunday was getting the Zivan installed. As you might recall, I made a mockup of the charger out of a cardboard box and found that it fit nicely over the nose rack. Cabling-wise, this was a lot better than installing it in the trunk (as I was planning to do with the Manzanita Micro charger) because the most positive and most negative ends of the battery string are right there.
To get it installed I needed to:
1. design, bend and weld the mounting bracket
2. paint said bracket
3. wire the output cables to the battery pack
4. crimp the cables to the supplied Anderson connector.
5. wire the 220 vac cable from the charger port to the charger input.

I started by laying some old floor mats over the batteries in the nose rack. I was then able to remove the bracket I made for the high voltage component box without worrying about shorts.

The bracket design was a bit tricky. The passenger side was the easy part, I just needed to make another straight bracket like I made for the high voltage box bracket, just bent in the opposite direction. But the other end, (where you see in the picture the the red and black cables plug in) was trickier. I could have run a straight piece of steel under the charger mounts, but it would have had to bolt to the airbag sensor, and I didn't want to mess with it. So, I used a bolt hole near the center of the cross brace (to the passenger side of the airbag sensor) and ran the steel at a 45 degree angle to the box bracket. This took care of one of the charger mounts (and stiffened up the box bracket too). The other charger mount was close to where the bracket attached to the middle bolt on the nose rack. I decided to weld a tab there to hold the mount. So designing it wasn't so bad, and neither was the welding, drilling or grinding. The painting went pretty smoothly too, though it was a bit windy in the back yard...

In between squirting on the coats of primer and paint, I made the output cables up. I had bought two 60" battery cables from Kragen to use on the DC/DC converter and the charger. For the charger, the red lead went to the terminal of the most positive battery - which is just to the driver side of the charger. Black lead goes to most negative - which is the input to the contactor (you don't want the switched side of the contactor or you will only be able to charge the car with the key switched on). The contactor is in the box mounted also to the driver side of the charger, so I could have got away with about a foot of cable, but I had plenty, and thought it would be better to have enough cable to unplug it easily and put it aside. You can see in the picture there is at least 2 feet of cable there.

I was concerned about the Anderson connector. These are special 2 conductor connectors designed for high voltage. I thought my wire might be too thick for the connector at 4 gauge instead of the usual 6 gauge. Comes out it fit right in and crimped solidly with my hand crimper (not the big one I borrowed).

Once the paint was dry, I removed the mats over the batteries and carefully put the brackets in place. the holes lined up fairly well, and it even looks pretty good.

Next was wiring up the input cable to the 220 volt line. The cable from the charger port was a little shorter than I liked - it only made it to the back of the Zilla. It would have been nicer if it had been a foot longer, but it was long enough to strip back the 3 wires. Being that it's a standard US cable, the wire code was black, white, green - green being ground and the black and white connecting to hot leads (actually, each are 110 vac, just 180 degrees out of phase to make 220vac). Anyway, the Zivan, being Italian, did not have the same color code. This was a little disconcerting. But after thinking about it, I realized that only the ground mattered, the other two leads just need to be connected to 110 vac each, it doesn't matter which one. I had considered using a connector so that I could easily disconnect the charger from input power, but I couldn't think of when I would need to disconnect it. So I hard wired it with some crimp on butt connectors. A little tape and it was good to go.

Only wish I had the 220vac outlet installed in my garage so I could plug it in.
That will have to wait for next weekend.

Vaccum pump resolved

2008-10-19T20:07:00.000-07:00

I was having trouble connecting up the vacuum pump for the power brakes.
Actually, it worked fine - it was just working too often - constantly cycling on and off, which indicates that there is a vacuum leak somewhere. The pump is mounted under the passenger side of the top rack beside the motor, so I have to pull out a couple batteries out of the rack to get to it. Most people connect the pump to a vacuum reservoir (essentially a tin can with a check valve and a hose fitting) which stores a little more vacuum than the booster alone. I've used one of these on a gas car a while back and am skeptical that they make any real difference, so decided to skip this piece and connect the pump to the vacuum switch and to the booster. I had a T fitting to hook this up and, it looked good, but, as I mentioned, didn't work real good.

One great help when dealing with this is having the right tools. I don't. But AutoZone does. They are a car parts retailer in the US and they have a great tool loaner program. Last week I drove to one of their stores and, after leaving a deposit, walked off with a hand held vacuum pump complete with a gauge.

I quickly found out the pump leaks! When it shut off the vacuum drops to zero. I got a check valve from Kragen (sorry AutoZone, but Kragen is in walking distance...) and after plumbing it in, it made no difference. After a few checks it was clear that the check valve didn't stop the leak. A little more testing and it was clear that the check valve was defective.

Later, while working on wiring up the charger, I had an epiphany. I didn't need another check valve, I just needed to move the stock one to the other side of the vacuum switch. The stock check valve is inside the hose that comes off the booster. So I pulled it off and replaced it with a regular hose. The check valve hose got moved to between the T fitting and the pump and voila. Works fine.

BEQ1s

2008-10-19T19:56:00.000-07:00

I got a good 8 hours to work on the car today. I'm in the home stretch now, and anxious to get it.
I got three major things done, so, three blog entries...

First was the BEQ1s.
As you might recall, the BEQ1s are battery equalizers which help keep the batteries from over and under charging which makes the pack last longer. I couldn't get equalizers for the Manzanita Micro charger I planned to buy, so I went with a Zivan that worked with the BEQ1s.

The BEQ1s are compact little black boxes (literally) that are easy to install - they just bolt to the posts of batteries. They have LEDs on them that light to show they are working or that there is an error. I ordered a couple of long terminals because two of the one for the front rack could be covered by the charger making it hard to see the little LEDs. HotJuice Electric (the maker of BEQ1s) was more than happy to help me out.

Undercar cabling - take 2

2008-10-17T19:38:00.000-07:00

Got a little time tonight to clean up something that has been bothering me. Back when I was planning this project I intended to use a PVC pipe to run the wiring from the front battery racks to the rear. After seeing a few cars not using any conduit, I changed my mind and decided just to tie wrap up the cables to the former exhaust pipe mounts. As you might recall this didn't work so well - the cables sagged enough that they could catch road debris and they weren't protected from said debris that might, over time, damage the cable insulation.
I got a comment pointing this out on the blog and an email from a Spec Miata racer explaining the damage to his exhaust system that he has personally seen. Plus he pointed out that in rare cases one of the axles could break free from the differential which could potentially wallop the cables into a heap of sparks.

So, back to plan A.
First I got a short length of 1.25" diameter PVC pipe just to protect the cables around the axle. It was hard to get the cable ends through the pipe and it didn't do anything for the sagging (naturally).
I returned this pipe and got a 10' long 2" diameter conduit - which was of course too big to make it under the axle with any ground clearance.
I returned this pipe and got a 5' long 1.5" diameter pipe - which was about 2.5' too short...
I returned this pipe to Judy (we are on a first name basis now) and got a 10' long 1.5" diameter pipe. It was long enough, it was wide enough it was small enough, it was just right...
The cables went into it real nice and I added a couple of 45s at the end to bring it right into the battery rack. This also let it sit down a little lower than if it was a straight pipe.
After I got the cables in it, I pushed through the cable for the 220vac line from the charging port to the charger.
Looks pretty clean, and definitely a lot safer.

No con-duit

2008-10-05T22:44:00.000-07:00

Another difficult day was in store for me this morning. I made an early trip to buy a short length of black PVC pipe to protect the cables near the axles and a proper hose fitting for the vacuum pump.

I'll spare you the details and just say, the fitting didn't fit, the pump still runs, but I still think the fitting is the culprit here.

I got a 16" section of 1.5" PVC pipe to use as a conduit below the axle. It was pretty difficult getting the terminal (clamp) ends of the cables through the pipe while lying on my back and reaching over my head. Eventually I got it. I shoved in the 220 VAC cable from the charger port too, then I tie wrapped it up and reconnected the terminals to the batteries.

I spent some time looking at it from under the car and it just looks sloppy. These battery cables are pretty heavy, so even though they are tie wrapped nice and tight, they sag. You can see in the picture a loop of orange hanging down toward the front of the car. Ugh.
So, after much gnashing of teeth, I decided that I'll be using a conduit for the whole run. I'll need to pull out the cables from the front (where they are terminated on lugs) and pull them through.

That will be next week.

Not the way to do it.

2008-10-04T22:31:00.000-07:00

I got back from a business trip late Friday night and though a little jet lagged, went to work on the car late Saturday morning. While I was out two boxes arrived - one with the charger port and wire and the other with 13 BEQ1s.
I decided to work on the charger port. I went with twist lock cables rated at 20 amps at 220 volts. the charger port is called an 'inlet" - like an outlet, but with the male connector inset. The connector won't be live, so having the connectors exposed is not a problem. I also mounted a remote indicator for the Zivan charger beside the charger port. This way you'll know how the charger is doing without having to snoop around under the hood.
Looks good don't it?
Well, it wasn't easy. My recommendation is to mount the indicator at least a 1/4 inch farther away from the latch release (that black button thing you see to the right of the port). I didn't think the whole thing through (I blame the jet lag) and mounted the indicator too close to the latch. I had to stick a washer behind the latch release mechanism so that it didn't protrude so far, then cut off the latch on the door assembly, since it hit the side of the indicator and wouldn't close, then had to rig up the bump stops with rubber cap extensions so that the door would pop open when released.
Could have been an easy job if I had thought it through. Took me a couple hours to get the door to work. Needless to say, the wiring didn't get done.

It's Alive video on YouTube

2008-10-03T11:07:00.000-07:00

Finally got the video of the first drive edited and uploaded to YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q22T8DrB7yE

I'll let you in on a little secret... (the first scene is backwards). It looks like I'm driving the car out of the garage, but actually, I was backing it in. You can see how I'm looking over my shoulder as I drive. The other odd thing is how the car won't make it back up the hill. The Zilla was resetting because the 12 volt battery I was running it off of (I didn't have the DC/DC converter in yet) was too low.

And, before you ask, those wheels came with the car when I bought it.

DC\DC converter and vacuum pump

2008-09-28T17:18:00.000-07:00

Back to work.

I hated to remove some of the batteries to do the Iota wiring and install the vacuum pump, but they were in the way. I switched off the breaker and carefully removed the 3 cables that connected to the passenger side batteries on the top rack and put the covers on the posts.
One bad habit I've gotten out of is laying tools on the car. I recommend using your pockets or a tool belt or just dropping them on the floor near by. Even if you lay a wrench on a rubber fender covers (mine ironically says Isky Cams on it), it can still find it's way into your battery pack. Same applies for the extra nuts and bolts in your hand as you tighten a nut.

I bought some one red and one black 60"4 gauge wire at a Kragen for $7.99 each. It already has lugs crimped to it and the 60" should cover my needs for the Iota and the Zivan. Most people use 6 gauge, I think, but 4 is 2 better, right? and they didn't have 6 at the Kragen.
I bolted a red cable to the big positive lead that had gone to the starter and bolted the black negative cable to the chassis as a ground. Too easy. I cut the AC cord and crimped on a lug for the most positive lead on the battery pack and extended the negative lead ('cause it was 4 inches too short) and crimped a lug on it and connected it to the switched side of the contactor.
Problem is, I can't test it until I reinstall the two batteries I pulled, so I'll need to wait until the vacuum pump is working.

The Vacuum pump bolted up to my bracket nicely and I wired it up to the vacuum switch (which turns the pump on when the vacuum is low) and hooked the hose up to a T fitting to connect the pump, switch and the brake booster. When I turn the key on the pump runs (yay!) and then turns on and off repeatedly (ugh). Must be a vacuum leak. I checked and retightened the fittings, but there was no change. I added a check valve(left over from another car project) in line after the switch which helped a little but not much. Back to Kragen for some new vacuum lines and the problem persists.
Hmmm.
Later I checked my add-on check valve by blowing and sucking on it (the things you have to do!) and it leaked. If that doesn't fix it then it may be the switch.
I'll deal with this later...

Its alive!

2008-09-21T19:57:00.000-07:00

Today is our annual block party and my latest deadline for getting the car running. Previous dates were Mid-June, July 4th, the August SFEVA club meeting, Labor Day and now the block party. As the dates were slipping, so were the requirements. I no longer planned to get the car “done,” just running. All I want to do is get it running, that’s all – no charger, no gauges, no DC/DC converter - just running.

I spent an hour or so this morning getting the top rack back into the car and re-assembling the brackets and the Zilla and cables. I needed to make sure all the cables are tight and aligned, so this took some time. I also did some more shrink tubing on the cable ends, even though the lugs are hidden in the box.

Later, I snuck out of the block party to do the battery cabling. I was a little concerned about this after my meltdown, so I put on rubber gloves, safety glasses and tightened up one cable at a time being careful that neither end was touching anything other than the battery post where it belonged. I taped up my ½ inch open end wrench so that only the open end section was exposed to insulate it in case I dropped it. I had the circuit breaker switched off and triple checked the Zilla and contactor wiring to make sure there were no shorts in the cabling. This was nerve racking work, but I got through all three racks without incident. After a sigh of relief I sat behind the wheel and turned the key. I don’t have the instruments installed, so all I could do was listen to the contactor close to indicate the car was working. I gave it a little juice and it moved! The Zilla hisses a little at low speed so that was a good indication that it was working.

Since we had the street blocked off for the party I decided to take it out for a spin. My wife captured it on video which I’ll edit down and post on the site later – maybe YouTube too. I can’t tell you what a relief it was to have the car running, but it did not want to go back up the hill. It would nudge a long then stop then nudge a long again. I got it back to my driveway and after answering questions and getting congratulated I got out my laptop to see what the Hairball thinks is wrong. It gave me an error code saying that the SLI battery was too low and the hairball was shutting down. Figures. SLI stands for Starter, Lights, Ignition – this is the battery that came with the car to start the gas engine. It had been sitting a year and, of course, I never thought to charge it.

At least it’s an easy fix.

Paint and a few wires

2008-09-20T21:56:00.000-07:00

Today primered and painted the top rack in my backyard. We are dog sitting for some neighbors this weekend. Hope I don’t have dog hair on my rack.

While the paint is drying between coats, I ran some wires from the hairball out to the box where the contactor sits. I need a pair of wires to turn on the contactor (actually only need one hot and a ground) and a pair on the power terminals of the contactor so the Zilla knows that it’s on. I will also need a pair of wires for the Zivan to tell the Zilla that the car is charging. This is intended to stop you from driving away with the car still plugged into the wall. I’ll hook this up later. I used a 4 pair network cable and crimped some ends on it. I’m not sure what gauge wire is needed for the Hairball (there is nothing in the manual, and I didn’t want to bother Otmar with more questions right now). I believe the wire is fine, and if not, I can double the leads up, or run something else, not a big deal.

More Hairball wiring

2008-09-19T22:30:00.000-07:00

I've got some of the wires figured out for the hairball, but the one that's stumping me is the starter wire. I traced it out in the wiring diagram, and sure I have the right wire, but, with the key on it gives me 12 volts and when you turn the key to start, it drops to zero. It's backwards. I tried tracing it back from the clutch switch (the interlock that makes you step on the clutch to start the motor) to the relay under the hood, to the fuse block, to the wire, and they all are backwards. Very strange. Maybe it has to do with the ECU being removed?

Anyway, today I decided to stop messin' around and went to the key switch, where the voltmeter showed that the wiring worked as expected - zero volts until the starter switch was activated, and then it hit 12 volts. I used a tap to connect a new wire right of the switch and down to the Hairball. In the picture you'lll see a bright red wire going to a yellow tap. Why didn't I think of that before?

A little grinding

2008-09-19T18:54:00.000-07:00

I took a couple hours today to clean up the top rack with a grinder to get it ready for paint. There are a lot of odd angles and brackets on this one, so it took longer than I expected.

More words about welding and cables

2008-09-13T22:09:00.000-07:00

Got a few things done today. I welded on the bracket for the circuit breaker to the front right side of the top rack. I was going to put it with the lever facing up to make it easy to trip when working on the car, but the instructions (and later the tech support people) said that for proper operation it needs to be mounted up right. It's not in the easiest place to reach, but my plan is to connect a cable to it so that it can be tripped from the driver seat.
Next I welded on two brackets on the lower left side of the rack for the vacuum pump. This produces the vacuum needed for the power brakes to work. It will mount under the rack in the space to the left of the motor.

After the welding was done I finished up the cables - added the shrink wrap to the ends, the proper colored insulating boots and tightened them down nice and snug.

I made the replacement cables up (to make up for the ones I melted) and added the two l o n g ones that connect to the rear rack. One goes from the circuit breaker to the positive terminal in the rear and the other comes from the last negative terminal up to the contactor. I was worried I would run out of cable, but I have a good 12 feet left of the fifty feet I bought.
Running these cables was a little tricky. I decided to tie wrap the cables to the exhaust hangers, which worked out well. I used some foam rubber pipe insulation to soften the connections where the cable was tied to the rear suspension and the front subframe.

Zivan charger is in

2008-09-11T15:48:00.000-07:00

After a lot of research and a few phone calls, I changed my original plans to use a Manzanita Micro PFC-20 charger and ordered a Zivan NG3. In the picture you see the NG3 beside the cardboard mock up that my daughter and I made. The Zivan is smaller, lighter and cheaper, but only works on one voltage – in my case 220VAC is what Zivan recommended. I still want to have 110vac charging available for “opportunity charging” (in a parking garage or friend’s house) and am told another small charger that is compatible with the Zivan is on the horizon.

The reason I didn’t go with the PFC-20 had nothing to do with the charger itself, but with the battery regulators. Manzanita Micro use to make something called Rudman Regulators they insured that the battery charges were in balance across the pack. Batteries each are a little different chemically and when charged in a string they can be undercharged or overcharged, reducing performance and their life span. A regulator will sit on top of each battery and make sure it doesn’t get overcharged and by doing this, insures other batteries don’t get undercharged. I’m a believer in battery regulation but the Rudman Regulators are no longer available. I tried to find something else, like PowerCheq, but they won’t work with 13 battery strings or with racks that a separated by more than a few feet. I did find a company in Austin making a nice regulator called a BEQ1, but it is designed to work with the Zivan. So there I am.

I’ll be building a bracket to place the Zivan above the nose rack in the near future.

Web site up(dates)

2008-09-10T19:13:00.001-07:00

Well, the site is back up and I decided it needed a little updating.
I added some info about a bea-utiful Miata re-body kit from Simpson Design and added some graphics.
I said a little updating, right?

Also, unrelated to the web site, I order a Zivan NG3 charger and a set of BEQ1 battery equalizers. And Monday I was able to do some programming of the Zilla's Hairball.
More on this later...

It's getting close.

Web site down

2008-09-09T17:19:00.000-07:00

I downloaded Chrome - the new Google browser - because I wanted to see what the web site looked like. I got an error 403 message when I hit the site. Hmmmm.

Of course my first thought was that Chrome was to blame, but when I tried it on Firefox and IE6 and got the same result, I realized it was my hosting service.

I sent them an email and they quickly replied:

Our system administrators are currently carrying out a server maintenance on the machine where your account is hosted on.
They will have it upgraded to a more reliable system that will hopefully cause less trouble.
The upgrade should be over after 12-15 hours.
We apologize for the inconvenience.

"more reliable system that will hopefully cause less trouble."
Hmmm.

Hairball wiring

2008-09-04T09:09:00.000-07:00

I had an hour of quiet after work and decided to start on wiring up the hairball. The hairball is the device where the low voltage wiring connects to the Zilla. I think it's also the brains to the Zilla, the controller of the controller so to speak. Anyway, with the help of my wiring diagram and a little sleuthing, I was able to locate the starter wire, a wire that the key controlled in the "on" position, the alternator light on the dash, and the Tach (I think - need to check on that one). Most were long enough to reach to the hairball, but a few needed a little extension. I also connected the Pot Box (the throttle control) to the hairball.
That's as far as I got.
More on this later.

Stuff in the mail...

2008-09-02T17:16:00.000-07:00

Got my terminals delivered this morning. These are the replacements I ordered for the ones that got toasted. I also forgot to mention that the replacement Optima was delivered Friday AM. They took the damaged one back for recycling.

The box

2008-09-01T20:57:00.000-07:00

Over the three day weekend I was able to get a little work done on the car. I decided it was easier to put the high voltage components into a box rather than try to find a place to mount them each and then try to insulate all the connectors. I bought a 6"x6"x4" plastic junction box at Lowes which was big enough for the main contactor (the relay that acts as the main power switch) and the shunt for the ammeter. The only other component that is high voltage is the Zilla, but I'll deal with insulating it later. Next, I needed to mount the box. I planned on keeping it as close to the Zilla as possible so that the wire runs were short. I built a mount out of 1" flat steel that connected to 2 of the nose rack mounting bolts and to one of the radiator mounts on the car. After the mount was done, I figured out where the cables were going to run into the box and drilled some holes. Next, I cut and crimped the cables. I was hoping for nice straight runs, but shirt cables, you don't get much flex for pretty "S" bends and the like. Still looks good.

I have 4 cables left - one to the circuit breaker (that I plan to mount on the upper rack near the Zilla), one to the rear pack from the breaker, one back from the rear pack to the contactor and lastly, a replacement for one I fried.

I should get a box this week with the needed terminals.

The meltdown

2008-08-24T22:20:00.000-07:00

Is it better to be smart or careful?
In my case, I was neither, or maybe I'm guilty of thinking I was smart, and careful.

I'm not sure exactly how it happened, but I do know that I had my cables laid out on the batteries on the nose rack. I had made the cable from most positive (the + terminal at the beginning of the string) to the the Zilla B+ terminal and the cable that connects the nose rack to the motor rack. I was measuring the cable that interconnected two terminals of the motor when it happened.

There was a loud snap.
Sparks flew.
Smoke filled the air.
And the smell of something burning.

I quickly pulled a sparking cable off the battery rack it was touching, and it stopped.
After the smoke cleared the cursing began.

Evidently, the Zilla cable that was just set in place slid off the terminal and touched the rack. A 5/8" open end wrench qas touching the rack and a cable. Enough of the cables made contact to complete a dead short across the batteries frying one of them. The terminal was melted away, as was a piece of two cable clamps and my 5/8" wrench. There was what appeared to be gray paint splattered around, but it wasn't paint, it was the lead post that vaporized.

I would like you all to think I'm brilliant and don't make mistakes, but in reality, neither is true. I make mistakes just like everyone else. So the message for this post is: don't be smart or careful, be safe. Don't think it won't happen to you or that you can just be careful - avoid the situation entirely by not taking chances - be safe.

It takes a village...

2008-08-23T21:00:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the cornball title, but I wanted to mention something about the EV community. There are a lot of knowledge people out there willing to help answer your questions, loan you a hand or, in my case, a tool. I've gotten to the point where I need to start making up the high power cables - these are the ones that connect the batteries together in one long series string and connect up the main contactor, fuse, breaker and controller. To make these cables, you buy a roll of fat cable (I used 2/0 welding cable), some terminals (lugs and/or cable clamps) and then crimp them on the cables. A special tool called a cable crimper is needed to do this. You can get an inexpensive hammer crimper for $35 all the way up to a ratcheting hex crimper for around $300. In my research found that most people recommend the hex crimper (the ratcheting part is a nice addition, but not necessary) - but these run well over $200 and how often are you going to use it? Since I belong to my local EAA (Electric Auto Association), I decided to see if I can borrow one from a fellow member. I was overwelmed at the response. People offered to deliver it to my home, to meet me after work, to come over and help me crimp the cables over the weekend - amazing!
So I was able to borrow this expensive and amazing tool from a fellow EVer, no questions asked.

The crimping was kinda fun. The tool takes some muscle, but the results were clean and professional looking - if I do say so myself.

No more Zillas?

2008-08-22T22:29:00.000-07:00

Big news today - Otmar is calling it quits. He evidently is having health problems related to running his business and looking to sell out.
Zillas are generally regarded as the best DC EV Controllers available. I would hope that someone reputable will take it over and keep these outstanding products on the market.

Read all about it on the Cafe Electric Blog:
http://www.cafeelectricpress.com/blog/?p=45

Keeping busy

2008-08-19T22:33:00.000-07:00

My family was out of town tonight. Do you think I read a book, or watched some of the Olympics?
Nah, I worked on the car...
First I mounted the potbox - this is the electronic throttle that tells the controller how much juice to give the motor. I mounted it on the firewall behind the windshield washer reservoir. I thought about a number of ways to connect the accelerator cable to the lever and ended up using an electrical lug crimped to the cable. I then wrapped the extra cable around the mounting screw and attached it to the lug with a mini cable strap - this gives me a little reassurance that if the crimp comes loose that the cable loop will keep it working. Furthermore, since I didn't remove the end cap from the cable, if the crimp comes loose AND the mini strap breaks, the end cap won't get pulled through the lug, keeping the potbox working, though not as well.
Redundancy is good - double redundancy is even more gooder.
Sorry - I took the picture before I did the double redundancy stuff.

Next I drilled out the temperature sending unit so that it would fit under one of the Zilla's water fittings. The sending unit comes with a 1/4 lug, but I needed it to be 3/8". A little drilling, a little filing a and a little Dremeling and voila.

Lastly, I flipped the cover over on the Zilla so that the graphic was right side up. I know, but it was bothering me.

That's enough for one night.

brackets and mounts

2008-08-16T22:48:00.000-07:00

Saturday I got to do a little bending and welding to finish off the mounts for the Iota and the Zilla, plus I got the battery straps mounted on the motor/cowl rack.
I wanted to attach the Zilla using a separate bracket so that other brackets could be used if another controllers was called for. The braket mounts to the rack, one of the rack brackets and a miata hole near the shock tower. I used flat head machine screws to that the bolt heads wouldn't interfere with the Zilla.
The Iota was originally going to mount with a bracket, but after some experimenting I found it could fit against the passenger side of the rack really nice. I welded up 4 tabs for it on the rack and drilled them out for flat head machine bolts so that the bold heads won't gouge the batteries.
Lookin' good.

Survey results - first pass

2008-08-13T12:50:00.000-07:00

This morning I decided to see how the Conversion Kit survey was going.
I had 49 responses so far with the majority (45%) going with my components (156v, WarP 9, Zilla...) and 59% of those went with the Optima battery option. I'll take that as a vote of confidence - or maybe I was just lucky. This group was pretty split between the Basic kit at 38% and the Complete kit at 54%.

The runner up was pretty interesting... actually something I was considering for my next conversion...
39% of the votes went for an AC system from Selectria and the majority of the battery votes (47%) of this group went with Lithium. A good number (37%) went with Optimas.
Interesting...

There is still time to get your vote counted in the survey, and it only takes a few seconds (because there are only 3 questions). Just click here.

Iota is here

2008-08-11T23:16:00.000-07:00

Got a big box today with a little 45 amp Iota in it. It's smaller than I thought, ought to be easy to find a spot under the hood for it. That's a dime on top of it so that you have an idea of the size.
By the way, I was going for their 30 amp model, but found a place that was selling the 45 amp model for about $135 - $15 more than the 30 amp model. This was about half what I thought I'd be paying, so why not go for the more powerful unit?

Brackets on the motor rack

2008-08-09T18:47:00.000-07:00

Got a chance to do some welding today and went after the brackets for the motor (cowl) rack. I decided to offset it to the passenger side so that it could be as close to the cowl as possible (making room for the brake booster). This also will give me a good location to mount the Zilla - just ahead of the booster. The front brackets weren't very tricky, but the rear ones had to be angled to align with some existing holes in the frame rail. The one on the passenger side had to sneak under 2 brake lines also, so it is angled and shaved on the top.

At any rate, the holes all line up and the welds look good. Next is to weld some tabs on the driver side to attach a bracket for the Zilla and on the passenger side to attach the Iota.

Oh, you might notice a little green box behind the rack. It is the Zilla's "hairball" (its wiring box). I screwed it to the firewall a week ago. After I get everything mounted I'll get started on the wiring.

Charger quandry

2008-08-08T22:33:00.000-07:00

I was about to order the Manzanita Micro PFC-20 I planned to use when I found out some bad news. First, the price has gone up around $300, second, there is now an 8 week wait for delivery and lastly, it appears you can't get the battery regulators that are made to work with it.
The battery regulators are needed for the AGM batteries I'm using to keep them from being damaged from overcharging since they can't "off-gas" like old school flooded cells.

I spent some time researching the battery regulator options and found PowerCheq and BEQ1.

The PowerCheqs sight says they may not work with long battery strings. I contacted Ryan at EVSource who sells them to see if they would work with my 13 bat string. Ryan replied that he didn't recommend them, and haven't got a reply when I asked for the reasons why.

BEQ1s looked good and were designed to work with the Optima D34M batteries I'm using, plus they are $20 less than the PowerCheqs. I contacted the manufacturer of the BEQ1s to see if they would work with the PFC-20 and the answer was no - they only work with the Zivan NG3. I had looked at the Zivan, but they are not dual voltage like the PFC-20, so I would need two chargers - one for 220 at home and another for 110 opportunity charging while on the road.
The Zivan is smaller and cheaper than the PFC-20, so it's worth looking into, and maybe I can come up with a cheap way to handle 110 charging...

I checked around and found a step up transformer that says it can step up a 15 amp 110 circuit to 220, but doesn't give an amp rating for the 220, but it's less than $100. I sent the Zivan folks a message to see if they thought this idea would work. Their reply was to say the NG3 charger needed more amps than the charger would offer and that they would get back to me with a proposed solution.

Maybe I need to get a cheap Rusco for the 110 charging and mount the Zivan in the garage?

So, I guess I'll wait to find out what the folks at Zivan come up with...

SFEVA meeting thoughts

2008-08-02T14:39:00.000-07:00

The August San Francisco EV club meeting was focused on conversions, and Dale Miller asked me to talk about this project. I was pretty honored to be invited - it was only 2 years ago that I knew nothing and now I'm being asked to play expert. Luckily Lawrence Rhodes (who I knew from his postings on a number of EV discussion lists) was there to keep me honest. There were a surprising number of really good questions from the group - obviously a lot of people there were seriously considering a conversion and were deep into the research phase.
During the introductions someone mentioned they were doing 2 AC 914 conversion . I should have made a mental note of this, but instead rambled through why I didn't choose a 914 or an AC conversion and later realized that since I was in the role of an expert, I might have offended him. If so, I apologize.
But what I did want to mention here in the blog was some details around the Miata's specs. One of the questions that came up was around the curb weight of the first generation Miata. I, of course, being unprepared gave an answer I thought was right, but was, in a word, wrong. I have since looked it up and found the Gross Vehicle Weight is 2700 lbs. (on the door jam sticker) and the curb weight is listed on edmunds.com at 2116 lbs. So what does this mean? The curb weight is the weight of the car with fluids and a full tank of gas. I believe in 1999 the government also wanted to include the driver weight of 150 lbs, but this is a '92, so no driver is included in that 2116 lb. figure. The Gross Vehicle Weight (GVW) adds the weight of a driver, passenger and cargo and is intended to represent the maximum weight the car is designed to carry. I have heard some EV conversion shops talk about not exceeding the GVW in your finished EV, or you might have structural problems. Of course, those can be mitigated by strengthening the car's frame, but it's still a good rule of thumb.
The other question that was a stumper was on Miata's aerodynamics. I like to say the Miata has good aerodynamics, but when asked for the figure, I drew a blank. I had to look this up again, and found a listing on Wikicars.org that said " The body was reasonably aerodynamic, with a Cd figure of 0.38." Now .38 isn't particularly good, but it's better than a Triumph Spitfire, but not quite as good as a '99 Mustang (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automobile_drag_coefficients). I suspect that a modification or two (like a belly pan) might improve this substantially. I guess I'll try to say the Miata has OK aerodynamics...
So thanks agian to Dale for inviting me and the attendees for putting up with my rambling talk. Hopefully someone got something out of it, and don't forget to question authority.

Lots of parts - web site update

2008-07-25T18:47:00.001-07:00

Got back from vacation and found a little time to update the web site. I fixed a typo in the budget that brought the project cost down a bit, added a FAQ page based on some of the email I've gotten and added a link page that lists a bunch of Miata conversions on the web - with a snarky comment or two.
Also, while I was out I ordered a few bits and pieces, so I should have the cable, lugs, terminals, shrink wrap, fuse holder, etc. - enough stuff to keep me busy a while. Take a gander at that circuit breaker - it's like 8" tall!
Maybe I'll get some time this weekend to work on the car...

Chop and section?

2008-07-06T23:38:00.000-07:00

So I was all set today to weld on the brackets to the motor/cowl rack so I could get it grind-ed/painted/bolted in like the other two.
But there was a problem...
I noticed that the edge of the rack was right over one of the motor terminals.
The terminal will have a rubber boot on it, but it will be carrying 156 volts, and if it were to contact the rack it would dump that 156 volts to the body of the car.
Yes, it's not very likely to happen, but the rack is a little wider than it needs to be, and I think I'd feel a little safer if it wasn't directly over that terminal.
So outcomes the sawzall.
It wasn't as easy to cut through the welds as I thought it would be - they must be stronger than I thought.
Comes out the rack was an 1 1/8" too wide. Now it will be nice and snug around those batteries.
he picture are awful (still using my daughter's $10 digital camera), but you can see the before and after shots of the terminal next to the rack.
I'll have to get those brackets on next time...

Steak night!

2008-07-05T20:27:00.000-07:00

Today is paint day.
After making the battery hold downs for the front rack and bolting them in place, I ground down the welds on both the nose and trunk racks.
where the grinder couldn't reach, I used an emery cloth or a file.
Looks pretty clean, not perfect, by any means, but pretty good.
next it was a trip to the back yard for a coat of primer. It was fairly warm and not much wind, so the painting went well.
after the primer dried inside and out, a broke out the stock red miata touch up paint.
I figure if I painted the racks the same color as the car, it would look stock-ish.
The shiny paint brought out all the imperfections in the racks. Good thing most of it will be hidden by the batteries!
So much for show car quality...
Once I got them in place I bolted them in for real - and they looked awesome.

It'll be steak tonight!

Some reworking of the nose rack

2008-07-04T20:12:00.000-07:00

Well, it occurred to me that the proper way to hold down the rear of the nose rack is to break the rack in two. Figuratively, of course. The idea is to make the rear brackets into a separate piece with a length of steel connecting them together across the engine compartment. This will make the rack easily drop into place and then bolt up to the bracket piece.
Simple enough?
So I cut off the rear brackets leaving enough on the rack to allow it to bolt up to the new piece.
I then ground the brackets I removed into shape (had to replace one since it was a little short and a bit ugly). I then measured out, cut and welded in a length of flat 1 1/4" steel.
The rack slides in real nice now - no banging and cursing the headlight assemblies, and no fear of damaging the headlight wiring.
I drilled three holes to mount the rack to the bracket piece - one on each side and one right down the middle.
I then welded on the tabs to the rack that will connect the battery hold down straps (these are the steel strips that run across the top of the batteries so that they don't pop out on a big bump (or when the car flips over)).
There wasn't room for the tabs to go horizontal in the front (the rack wouldn't fit) so the front ones are vertical and the rear ones are horizontal. I welded the rear ones on a little high so that the rack could used them to rest on top of the "bracket bar"
Much better

Just a bit off

2008-07-03T23:03:00.000-07:00

When I was working on the nose rack I noticed that it didn't line up with the motor like it had before. The nose rack is split down the middle so that the back shaft of the motor has room (the front shaft is the one with the flywheel attached in the back of ... never mind). I made some measurements and the motor is almost a quarter inch too far to the left.
Ugh.
I jacked it up, removed the mount and tried to realign it, but it's still off.
Disgusted, I removed the mount again and worked the bolt holes over with the rat tail file.

It took 4 attempts before I got it to line up right down the center.