My first full week as the driver of a DIY EV was…eventful. Let’s start with the bad. On Tuesday, I did what you might call an ‘accidental full range test’. As in, I ran out of juice on the way to collect my daughter from a class and had to dump the car and jump in a taxi to get her. Because I haven’t really … Continue reading I’ve been driving in my car
So, things ended on a bit of a low just before I went on holiday a few weeks ago. The second run at an MOT ended in disaster. But my optimism was quickly restored and before I left, I posted some parts off to people for help. One of those parts has come back sorted, albeit in need of reassembly. That’s the Battery Management System, … Continue reading I get knocked down…
After I posted about my MOT woes on the Open Inverter forum, the ever-helpful Damien Maguire chipped in. It seems my occasional loss of torque may be related to a temperature issue with the Prius Gen 3 inverter. Damien, who runs this setup in his E39, has found that this inverter needs serious coolant flow to keep it cool. Without this, the remaining Toyota brain … Continue reading Keeping the EV cool
It has been three weeks since my last update. The pace of this project has definitely slowed as work has picked up and the weather has worsened. Nonetheless, there is plenty of progress to report. Unfortunately I haven’t been great at taking photos this time around so forgive the paucity of pictures. Battery Box After my disastrous spatial miscalculations of the last update, I decided … Continue reading Boxing
The project progresses apace…or at least it was progressing. Now hitting the limits of what I can do without some batteries. But here is where we’re at: Engine Bay Tetris With the engine mounted, we could start working out where everything else goes. Through a process of trial and error, and lots of tack welding, we got the inverter and the high voltage junction box … Continue reading Batteries, batteries, batteries
