Better, yes?

I improved the Air Intake Filtering System (AIFS, as I like to casually call it) a little bit. Still not the prettiest thing on the planet, but a little less protruding at least. I'll try to fix it a little more permanently once I have the new cells in.

On that note I have eight new CALB SE40AHA cells ready to rock. I noticed they have new cool vents with a little round cap on them that says CALB. I'll be sure to put these cells in the motorcycle so that they'll be the most visible ones. As for the bottom balancing, taking place here in the picture, I set my Professional Bottom Balancing Tool (or PBBT) to 2.7 volts, so the cells drained in parallel to 2.69 volts. The next day after disconnecting them from everything, including each other, they were at exactly 2.71 volts each. Shows that doing this in parallel works, all cells are good (bad cells would go down by themselves) and they are quite identical in all intents and purposes.

Temporary solution

 

I came up with a temporary solution to the air filter sticking out. The tube still sticks out almost as much, but... Well, I think it's a little better. I'll have to take the whole thing to my underground lair a little later for a proper fix. I'll try to include the electric fan in there then as well.

Sticking out

Ok. I suppose it sticks out... a little.

Air cleaner and water intake prevention

Since it's been raining cats and dogs for a few days and preventing me from driving the bike to work I got anxious to do something about the waterproofing of the DC motor in the kWsaki. Here's what I've come up with.

The tower consists of Biltema part numbers 88463 (hidden inside), 32323 (air filter) and 88471. I have an 8" fan which I'm also planning to put inside the big adapter piece, so that the motor will always have more than enough airflow, even at low rpm. I just don't have the fan with me right now. Pictures of the installation later.

Update: If you're wondering what this has to do with waterproofing, my thinking is that adding the filter and moving it a little further away would mean less water in the motor. Water entering the filter at standstill should also not find it's way inside the motor nearly as much as it does now. This setup also gives me the option of moving the intake filter somewhere else using some flexible tube.

Energy Day 2014 in Pori

There we were. My EVs next to a Tesla. Quite a few of people stopping by and asking a lot of questions. I think my DIY projects gathered more interest than the Model S. It is just an OEM car anyway.

Well, at least there were a lot of people until it started pouring. During the rain, not so much.

I can't say I couldn't some use for one. Looks smaller than it is, really. I'd need mine with all 7 seats.

Something interesting I noticed. Rust. I've heard that the attention to detail is good compared to it's other countrymen, but I suppose an american car is still an american car. Not cool.

kWsaki updated and running again

 

 

With the Energy Day coming up it was time to get the good ole kWsaki back into running condition. I had neglected it and scavenged parts from it for the car. It had lost it's AXE7245 controller, so it was time to give it the Kelly KDH12600D controller I had originally meant for the car, but the AXE had some features I needed there. Such as 0-5V throttle input, which the cheapo model Kelly doesn't have. It only supports 2-wire pot, which the Magura twist grip throttle in the motorcycle has anyway. 

The KDH12600D could go up to 136 volts and 600 amps, but it may not be a good idea to go so high. In any case I moved two SE40AHA cells away from the top row to make the front wheel clear a little better and made a place for five more cells for a total of seven cells in the bottom row. Not really a row, since it's four cells parallel to each other and two adjecent. That means there's now space for four more cells in the top row. That makes 29 cells in total for the whole vehicle and a "nominal" voltage of 84 V. That's actually 92.8 V with 3.2 V per cell, 102.2 V charge voltage and I'm expecting to see 96.7 volts after charging. Should give a bit more range and perhaps a way to reach highway speeds too.

When I had both 60 Ah and 40 Ah packs in parallel in the car, there was a problem that two of the 40 Ah cells were shooting to over 4 volts way before the others reached even nearly full state of charge. I didn't know whether this was because of this parallel setup or not. Now that I took the 40 Ah cells out and charged them alone, the same cells were hitting voltages around 4.5 volts. Scary zone, that is. It does however mean that parallel charging uneven packs may be just fine, just as I thought. Those two cells just have dimished capacity compared to the others, so I put in an order for 8 new SE40AHA cells to replace those two and a couple more cells to get the 29 cell pack together. I'll have 4 cells left over, at least two with lower capacity, but still a probably quite usable 12 volt pack, perhaps for the car or just for my test bench.

Kelly KDH12600D installed. The rusty bits got treated with some black paint.