MY EV , 85 electric fiero

MY EV , 85 electric fiero
A conversion of a gas engine powered car to 100% plug in electric.

Monday, November 24, 2008

COLD hard facts!


So needless to say it is getting cold here in Ohio. How cold? 24 the other night when I drove home. I have a difficult situation for a EV. First of all I need 32 miles a day to get from home to work and back. That is more than some cars will go. Then I work 2nd shift so my trip home is in the dark. Sometimes with wipers on and it is always colder. I built the most efficient car I could find so that I would have extra left over. So when it got cold I could use heater and lights. Well after coming home the other day and feeling the voltage sag I decided to research it a bit more into the Effects of cold. I called my crown distributer and he looked up the data sheet for me. The data sheet said @80deg F they are 100%... @32deg F they are 80% rated capacity... and at 0deg F they are 30 % rated capacity. These numbers are way bigger than I ever thought they would be. So the options are....
1) Call it a 3 season car and deal with it.
2) heat and insulate the battery pack.
Well I did not design my battery pack very well for insulation. I have individual battery off buy themselves. So I think It is gonna have to be a fair weather EV.
I hope someone reads ths and understands how cold effects a lead acid battery. These were things that I never found before I built my car. I guess I was also fooled buy the fact I have seen frezer trucks in the forklift buisiness. I asked the Battery guy how they work and they Raise the acid level on the batteries. Making them Cold storage only.

Just the Cold Hard Facts :(

Larry

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Still at it !


I was scared at first. It got cold and the performance of my car went down hill. No way cold affects this that much.. I was thinking what a horrible mistake making this car. It was barley making the 35 mile a day trip now and I was too scared to run the heater. Then It warmed up and... I was still having problems... Then I stated testing everything and checking things out. There it was. Bad cell In one of the batteries. Must of happened on the first 32 degree night. Well now, one off colored battery latter and I am back in business. I guess In my original purchase of batteries the factory had ran out of red tops... So they put my batteries in black cases until they got the shipments in. well now if I get one replaced I get the red top batteries :)
I decided that the stink in the garage over time would rust my car and tools if I didn't do something about it. So I got a bathroom exhaust fan that moves 50 CFM of air. I decided to blow it out the soffet on the usually down wind side of my garage. I will find out tomorrow if It does good. I also got a 12 houre timer that I still need to wire in so I can just turn the dial and walk out and It will shut itself off.