Coming soon.....Death Truck 2010!!!

[snakeplissken]

I have been working on it for sometime and plan to use it as my daily commuter. Chassis is a 1990 Mazda B2200. All the gas engine parts were stripped entirely from the truck. The prime mover I chose was a Warp 9 DC motor from Fenton Missouri. It has direct drive, just a splined transmission yolk out of the clutch disc welded to a plate then bolted to the motor coupling itself that has a 1 1/8" shaft with a key way. Fourteen 12 volt batteries for a 168 volt system three different chargers onboard one Kelly 144 volt charger to charge 12 and two little guys to charge the last two. All the batteries are mounted in an aluminum truck box in the back which I had to insulate with rubber paint used to spray truck beds with because one of the batteries began leaking out of the negative side and when I touched a positive of one of the batteries and the box I got about 100 volt shock. I guess the acid was enough to reach the negative post. I can't wait to take it for a drive this week.

[tmaiden]

Cool! I was researching an EV build, but it never got off the ground.

What range do you expect? What kind of batteries do you plan to use? flooded Lead acid? Sealed? Brand name? Deep Cycle, Fork lift?

Tell us more about the batteries.

[WinfieldMike]

Way to go Jacob...that really looks cool! How lon until you can bring it to an FNBS?

[snakeplissken]

The battery's number is NG-27 they are made by Exide. They are flooded and are your average 100 amp hour marine battery. I want to get this thing on the road asap so I can take advantage of the 1 year free replacement if something does happen and there is a two year pro rata warranty too. The box still gave me a shock tonight and I really racked my brain to try and figure out how it was doing that. It turned out that the charger case that is mounted inside the cab is grounded so I had to space it out with rubber washers and plastic pop in screws. The car right now has the aluminum plate off it that runs the alternator and power steering pump to mount a pollution pump for brake vacuum and the pulley that goes on the shaft is being fixed so who knows. Plus the car still needs insurance, plates, safety, inspection and all that bs (but no emissions hehe). I do plan on taking it for a few victory laps and burn outs around the block this week though. I will probably get all that on tape too now that I am using an el cheapo 100 dollar camera like you recommended never fails and its a fifth of the price huh.I plan to do a lot of little things too that will hopefully help improve range like install a light weight tubing bumper knock off the tail gate for a net maybe try out skinnier smaller wheels and tires and put moon eye hubs caps and fender skirts on it. I wonder if Winston has any books from that publisher on how Edison constructed his nickel iron cells, these lead acids will do for now but eventually I would like to make my own batteries.Would anyone have any knowledge about how implement regen with a series motor? Any other suggestions to improve it?

[Carlton]

cool Truck but with the emmisions and safety inspections red tape may that will be an adverture in itself in St Louis.

love to see at FNBS if possible (maybe take the plates from you car for the evening) make everything appear perfectly street legal.

[WinfieldMike]

Hey Jacob....

I've got a friend who is at the "ready to spend money" stage on a conversion. When you will you have a public viewing of the DeathTruck? He wants to take his one step further and install a small diesel motor in the bed to act as a charger, kind of like the Chevy Volt.

I still am in awe that you have done this, and to think a few years ago you barely knew what a volt was!

Mike

[snakeplissken]

I took it for a brief drive down the street Friday sans camera just to test it out and get it safety inspected (the safety inspection place is about 200 feet from us I don't know what I would do if it wasn't) the dmv is really putting me in a catch 22 here because I can't get plates unless I have a safety inspection and I can't drive it to the inspection until I get plates . The acceleration isn't so bad if you take off in second or third but forget about first and I have to really baby the pedal in reverse. When the guy at the inspection place told me to pull into his garage he said "Well come on! What is it won't start?" and when he saw the car rolling forward he thought someone was behind the car pushing it . I later explained everything to him and I was in and out in no time but the price was a little steep even though I am getting an inside deal. After that I took it for a spin in the cemetary across the street and reached a top speed of about 40 miles per hour fast as I could go around those little roads without drawing attention. The acceleration was impressive in any gear but the brakes still really need vacuum though because I have to slam my foot down to screech to a halt. I don't really know if I believe it but at one point when I was going up a hill a decided to floor it and the amp meter read somewhere in the neighborhood of 800 AMPS maybe even close to 1000 although only for a split second. When I got back from about fifteen minutes of driving I checked under the hood the controller was quite warm but not so warm that I couldn't put my hand on it so I have put an aluminum heat sink underneath and that seems to have cleared up the problem and I might have to put heat sinks on top with dielectric grease for highway driving and another fan on bottom. How can the controllers be as efficient as they say, about 95 %, if they generate this much heat? The controller seems to have an acceleration problem when it gets warm too because the car starts to idle when my foot isn't even on the gas pedal but now with the heat sink it doesn't do that I really hope I don't have issues with highway driving. When I get a script worked out I will post something on youtube of a vid that I take maybe Monday. Also I think I will need lights on the gauges for night driving you guys have any ideas? I wonder if one of those Knight rider displays would do the trick? It will be on display as soon as its all legal and has that brake booster on it. What system is the guy thinking about putting in it? What brand of generator? I looked into the new honda ones that are super quiet and they they are about 1500 to 3000 dollars yikes.

[electroken]

> To be inspected, you are allowed to drive to the inspection station---but nowhere else, then straight back home! A typical inspection will be done except for the emissions. The wipers, all lights, and horn must work. You have a complete body so that part willl pass, (fenders, bumper), ball joint test, but when he sees the brake master cylinder, it will fail!
> Everybody needs to wrack their brain for this problem. How to get brake master cylinder the vacuum it needs??!! That is all this truck needs to pass! Electric vacuum pump-down unit for AC?? An AC compressor running in reverse? How much vacuum does a brake master cylinder need?
> Safety is also an issue. Fuse the Positive output side at the last battery, and I'd put more during the series connections. If ever the truck gets hit, the impact will likely damage a battery causing it to short and/or leak. The multi fuses will protect you and a fire fighter or rescue person. Make an impact detector so it will disconnect power.
> During charging, test batteries for bad cells by seeing how warm they get during the charge. Get a marine battery tester, amp/volt test each battery. Your system is only as strong as the weakest battery! Batteries have been known to explode!
> Cover those battery posts! If I dropped a wrench or the battery box gets slammed, there are many places of possible contact with the box sides.
> Is the truck body grounded like a normal truck? I don't think it would be wise to do this for your truck (maybe the 12v power can be body grounded---but not the motor power!)

[snakeplissken]

I solved the issue with vacuum brakes and they work perfectly now with an air compressor off of a cadillac air ride little bit noisy though even when we added a fuel filter as a muffler but now there is a new problem though those of you at the FNBS will know I was really bummed out, THE CONTROLLER TOOK A SH*T! I even contemplated taking it apart that build session! As I was driving down the road I heard a huge kerchunk and thought it was a something mechanical but I tested the motor and throttle and there was nothing else it could be but the controller. Looking at it further I saw greenish blue liquid coming out of the controller and determined that it was probably came from a capacitor exploding inside. Anyone have an idea as to what could have caused this? I sent it back with a long detailed letter of what happened but I am very doubtful of it ever working and I am still hoping for a refund if anything else goes wrong after all this. If none of this works could I possibly use a couple of these IGBTs in parallel http://theelectrostore.com/datasheets/s ... 22-2dw.pdf with a pwm circuit?

[snakeplissken]

The company Logisystem called me today saying that because I soldered on to the ks1 spade lug, the input that turns the box on, that that's what fried the motor controller and in order to fix it they are going to charge me 600 more dollars even though its still under warranty. How could thirty seconds worth of soldering on the little terminal lug eventually lead to a capacitor explosion? If that destroyed the controller it would have fried it instantly and I wouldn't have been able to drive the car at all ! They must be going broke from all the controllers coming back to them and they are trying to weasel out of the warranty any way they can. This is just making me fuming mad. I guess I will just bad mouth their company on as many forums as I can and see if they will either lower the price or send it back so I can take it apart and see what happened.

[Carlton]

if Logisystem doesn't come to a much better agreement.

I would threaten legal action $600 definitely is worth court cost if you try and represent yourself, it may even cover some(minor) legal counsel

Logisystem will likely try to settle favorably enough as soon as they get the court summons (so your only out the court cost to file) (a fraction of the $600)

however you were possibly over the high side on the voltage so you might share some of the responsibility.

[snakeplissken]

I went to my bank and filed a claim against grassrootsev maybe this will knock some sense into them.But like you said I may have to take Logisystem themselves to court any idea how I might do that without an attorney? They list on their site their controller is capable of going well over the rated voltage just to make up for the batteries being charged over the 12 volt rating because sometimes after charging batteries are they are 13 or 14 volts.

[Carlton]

Missouri like most states have illerate but right to justice laws
meaning if you go to the court house and start asking for directions on where to get paper work for file a law suit, and how to put the correct information on the paper their has to be someone there to answer those questions. (however there may be a fee for that guidance)
basicly if you go to the court house and polite and ask for the forms for filing a lawsuit someone will probably point you to the correct place.

But you need to know exactly who all you can sue
And what you're sueing the for
among some other things the court forms should guide you through

Start researching U.C.C. - ARTICLE 2 - SALES
..PART 3. GENERAL OBLIGATION AND CONSTRUCTION OF CONTRACT
§ 2-316. Exclusion or Modification of Warranties
http://www.law.cornell.edu/ucc/2/2-316.html

and
Uniform Commercial Code Locator
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uniform/ucc.html

once you've read everything there you should be prepared to show up at the court house and start filling forms for your suit
but be aware of statue of limitation... Time is never on your side

[Carlton]

also before your lawsuit would go anywhere you need to show you pursued all other options to resolve the conflict.

So you need to work the phone or email and try to work things out and get a statement of what the best they think they can do is.

if that isn't good enough

File BBB - Better Business Bureaus http://www.bbb.org/
unlike court, BBB is free to file an claim issue and no lawyers normally
can be a lot of paper work, But Most business take it similar to a lawsuit
(as you already have most all your information together, just need to pay court cost to annitiate a real suit)

[tmaiden]

That is my biggest problem with buying electronic parts, when building a system.

If the black ( or silver) box dont work or blows up, how do you know if it was caused by a manufacturing defect, a poor design or something that your system did to it? Motor controllers are costly beasts.

if you burn up a few LEDs before you realize that your current limiting resistor is mismarked, it is no big deal . But if you burn up a $600 controller, it can get costly, or leave you stranded on the road somewhere.