A little update

I have done no work on the project over the winter..  But it's almost time to tidy up the workshop and start again, spring is almost here :)

In the meantime here are some EV pictures that I took last weekend whilst on a little holiday in Newcastle.

First, I was surprised to find electric busses!  Not trolley busses, which were taken out of service in the 60s here, but shiny new single deckers plying a route between the Millennium Bridge area with its art gallery and concert hall, up to the centre of town and the railway station.

We took a ride on one and I was impressed with the quiet and smooth drive and the ease at which it climbed the extremely steep hill on the route!  

However, I remain not entirely convinced about whether it's completely battery powered.  The stagecoach website alternately mentions "electric" and "diesel electric", whilst wikipedia suggests they are "gas turbine electric"

As I say, they were *very* quiet in operation, you could hear only the transmission whine and faint roar of the heater.. or was that a turbine?

The company website gives more details: it does indeed have a capstone 30kW turbine which can run on diesel, as well as Li-Ion batteries and a 500kW drive..  Not bad!

Later on we visited the Angel of the North.. but on the route, I'd been told by my customer that Smith Electric Vehicles was nearby, and who could resist nosing about an electric van factory!  (ok, everyone but me) 

Probably quite wisely they don't have a showroom and there was nobody about.  However, there were signs of a large scale conversion operation in full swing.  Maybe 100 "chassis-cab" Transits and Isuzu (I think) trucks are lined up at the front, with the converted vehicles no doubt fenced off at the back.

I've seen the big orange TNT trucks driving around in cities so they are definitely out there - the Transits I haven't seen but I believe they are turned into supermarket home delivery vans with a custom rear box.

The chassis take one or several big Zebra batteries, giving an impressive range.

Here are some of the Transit chassis anyway, they are clearly being supplied as "gliders" without engine, gearbox or other ICE parts.

Test drive

Test drive.. in valet mode :)

Just a quick video before I take the temporary batteries out and get ready to make the bodywork.

First run

I was hoping to actually be driving the chassis about now, but the rear pulley is still at the machinist.

But, I wired it up and the motor goes!

Here is a video of the momentous occasion:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=VQWDNZ81G8k

Later in the day I managed to stab my finger quite badly on a sharp edge of metal and have stopped working on it for today!

Ages since the last update - I spent way too long thinking about the floor. In the end I used a high-tech composite.. 4mm Birch plywood with 450g glass fibre on both sides. The total floor plate weighs 14kG, and you could probably get away with a bit less material than that, as it's extremely rigid. Should be quieter than a metal floor too.

Also I piped the brakes up, and improved the upper framework a bit. Not quite finished with that yet but should be ready to drive the chassis about very soon :)

Motor!

The motor, a 6.7" ADC arrived in the post, so here's a photo of it in roughly the right place..

Motor repair

Just found some pictures of the motor repair I attempted last week. This is the motor from my own Berlingo which blew up in 2006. I had a spare so didn't do anything with this one until now, when I had to borrow one from another vehicle for Steve.

I knew from the way it had blown up the controller that the field had shorted to the armature at some point. But where? By connecting a sensitive ohm-meter and tapping the windings with a screwdriver handle, I found the point - of course, it was in one of the places where the interpole winding runs next to a field coil. There was clearly not enough insulation between them, and it had flashed through and taken a chunk out of one of the outer conductors of the field winding.

A local armature winder (R&T Barr of Dunfermline) was kind enough to not only tell me how to repair it, but lent me the materials to do so! He didn't have time to do it himself but will be skimming the comm on the same motor.

Here's my very first motor repair then.



This is the damaged wire, dug out of the winding. Beneath it is self adhesive fibreglass tape. I've attached a piece of earth wire from a normal domestic supply cable to bridge the gap, about to solder it in place.








The connection is soldered, wrapped in yellow (Melonex?) plastic tape and then another couple of layers of fibreglass between it and the large interpole winding which is now tied back on top with the magic armature winder's knot.







I hope it works!

Meanwhile.

I almost forgot what this was supposed to be about. Yes, since you ask, I've been doing a little work on the 3 wheeler.

Here is a picture of the current state. Steering and pedals are in, the brake lines are not in place yet.




It's quite solid now and I look forward to putting the motor and belt drive in and getting it to move under its own power. The current weight is around 140kg as it is shown there. The difficult part, the bodywork, is starting to loom!