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Vehicle Conversions |
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| This project came about from the partnership of Kyle Dansie and Michael Mielke. The partnership came about from our mutual desire to prove that green transportation without oil is not only possible, but also desirable. The movie "Who Killed the Electric Car" was a great motivator. The success of the Electric Ninja motorcycle that Kyle built in early
2007 was a starting point for the design of the VW. The 3 main questions
that everyone asks about an electric vehicle are: The answers from the motorcycle were 55 mph, 40 to 50 mile range, and $4,200 dollars in parts. The motorcycle has over 1,800 miles of trouble-free driving. The thought was if a 2-wheel vehicle is this good, what would a real car be like? In summary, the motorcycle is a joy to drive, it is pollution free (charged by solar PV panels) and it is super quiet. The initial design goals for the VW are 65 mph, 40 mile range. The cost so far has been about 10k for the components and $2,500 for the 1994 VW Golf used as a starting point. The VW Golf was chosen because it is a small 4-door car that is not too heavy at about 2,500 pounds. Most new cars these days are over 3,000 pounds. The VW also has good interior room for a small car. They made these cars for several years with only minor changes, so it might be a good one to do again someday. They are also on the used market at a reasonable price. The major conversion components used for this project are: The Trojan T-125 batteries are Golf Cart batteries. They are true deep cycle batteries with an amp hour rating of 240 ah. Twenty of these batteries in series will result in a system voltage of 120 volts. This voltage is in the middle of the range for the Curtis controller, so that should yield a good life on the controller. To see the full specifications for the T-125 battery see this page. http://www.trojan-battery.com/Products/GolfCart.aspx The 6 volt batteries have large heavy plates that hold up well with the loads placed on them in electric vehicles. An earlier version of this car tried to use 12 volt batteries. When using the 12 volt batteries the range was horrible at about 12 to 15 miles. The 6 volt batteries provide a range of about 50 miles. This car has been driven 25 miles and the state of charge was 60 percent remaining. Using 20 batteries of 6 volts each resulted in a much better range than using 12 batteries of 12 volts each. The only downside of this approach is the increased weight of the battery pack. However if you want the car to have a good range, then you have to live with the increased battery weight of the 6 volt batteries. The Curtis 1231C was the controller recommended by Electro Automotive for this motor and battery combination. The Curtis controller seems to work well in areas that do not have lots of long hills. On extreme steep and long hills it will go into a shut down mode and only deliver 200 amps instead of the 500 amps maximum. In the future this car will be upgraded to a Logisystems 1000 amp controller. The Curtis controller works fine about 90 percent of the time. The only problem comes on long and steep hills. The motor chosen is a 9-inch impulse from NetGain. www.go-ev.com This motor seems to have very good performance in small cars and more
people are using these instead of the 8-inch advanced DC motors that have
been used in the past. The motor adapters for this motor and VW 5 speed
combination are readily available from Electro Automotive. They have an
extensive list of adapters here. After reading numerous articles about other adapter designs it was felt that this design was the best on the market. This along with the fact that Mike Brown's book "Convert It" is one of the best I have read on building an EV were the two main reasons that Electro Automotive was chosen as the kit supplier for this car. www.electroauto.com/info/books.shtml To summarize the 3 questions from the top of this page; A more detailed list of the components used in this car is available
at this page. |
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