Rollercoaster
tl;dr: the car has passed its MOT! We are now the proud, grin-wearing owners of a road-legal, home-made, fully-electric vehicle. Continue reading Rollercoaster
Tag: inverter
I get knocked down…
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…
Heating up
Time for another monster update as it has been over a month since the last one. What have I done? Rear axle assembly Getting this apart proved a ballache. Lots of rusted nuts & bolts – was glad of new impact wrench. Brake lines were the worst. I ended up cutting most of these off. The calipers were pretty shot too. One was maybe rescuable … Continue reading Heating up
JFDI
About 12 years ago the start-up I co-founded joined an accelerator programme. One of my takeaways from my time spent there (I was still running another business) was the phrase “JFDI”, short for “Just f***ing do it.” I think it is fair to say I have reached the JFDI stage on this project. In April we are getting a load of building work done. This … Continue reading JFDI
Rebuilding enthusiasm
It turns out that the inverter board failing and me smoking some components (see last installment) was just the beginning of a week of technological disasters for me. My broadband router failed, wiping out a morning while I tried to cobble together a working arrangement until I could get hold of a replacement. In the middle of that, my web server (actually a virtual instance) … Continue reading Rebuilding enthusiasm
Back to the bench
Yeah, it’s all borked. So, after the little success of last time, I was very keen to get the wheels spinning. And if I’m honest, I wasn’t cautious enough. And that’s being polite about it. I was a bit of a knob. Twice. With one battery pack hooked up, giving us 60V, we put the key in and gave it a twist. The inverter came … Continue reading Back to the bench
Weaving the loom
This week I have mostly been focused on getting the car wired up. Inverter connection housings With the battery box and inverter mounts in, the first issue I had to solve was the connections on the inverter, which were now fouled at the back by the firewall and at the side by the wheel well/strut housing. I tackled the low voltage connections first, looking at … Continue reading Weaving the loom
In the frame
Little update after a bit of work the last couple of days: battery box, inverter and high voltage junction box all now in and ready for some wiring – both high voltage and control. Got some of the 3D printed connectors/adaptors I’ve knocked up in as well. Photos show me mocking up the location of the inverter with cardboard and wooden wedges so I could … Continue reading In the frame
Boxing
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
Rotation!
It has been another rollercoaster of a week on this project. At the end of last week I posted my inverter control board off to Jamie on the other side of the Pennines for him to test it in his setup. He found the same problems I did and set about trying to fix them. After much experimenting he came to the conclusion there was … Continue reading Rotation!