Engine Bay Model in Sketchup Warehouse

For anyone who is interested in playing with Google Sketchup, I have uploaded the model of my engine bay layout into the Google 3D Warehouse. Just look for Engine Bay Layout.
If you haven't played with Sketchup yet, it's a free download from Google. If you aren't really into professional 3D packages and just want something to use as a visualisation tool I find it very useful. It has saved me a heap of time - and probably money.

Helping Someone Move - Charger progress

I have not had much time for the car this past week but I have been planning wiring layouts etc.
This is a 2D of the final engine bay layout. The controller has moved to the left side of the car in order to better balance left to right weight. Note the new addition (with relative position) of a 12V sealed AGM battery that will kick start the whole shebang.

I spent the weekend sealing my sister-in-law's new garage and moving delicate stuff in cars as she is moving to a new dwelling. I did manage to steal an hour or so to slightly progress with wiring the chargers. I didn't take any photos but here is the Sketchup.
I used the spare "slot" in the second front charger tower for the terminal box that will provide power to the chargers. They are not all wired in parallel but more about that another post. The 'P' clamp is to secure the 4 charger power cables that will come in the side of the box.
Note the "Cutout for gland". It's all getting a bit tight.

Charger 'towers' finished

I mounted the last of the seven front battery pack chargers in their brackets last night. The top slot on one of the 'towers' will be empty. I might cut it down, fill it with something cosmetic - or leave it. I will drill the holes in the bottom lips when I see exactly where they mount on the controller tray. I might have to avoid something.

 

I took my cordless drill battery and charger to work yesterday so I could charge it for the recommended 4-5 hours as I'm using it a lot. Also, I was trying to prevent myself from overcharging it as I have sometimes done by leaving it on all night (heaven knows why I'm building a battery powered car). You guessed it - I left it at work on charge all night - oh well. I didn't like using the power drill with cord - no speed control amongst other things.

How fast will it go?

The next question I get asked a lot is how fast will it go.
With my 3.89:1 differential, 185/65R13 tyres (that's tires to you USA guys) the motor will be doing about 4339 RPM at 120km/h. The motor is rated at 1465 RPM at 75% load and 50Hz. Since the controller will go up to 150Hz at it's most efficient switching rate (gets a bit complex here because it can actually go higher), then it follows that the motor can do 4395 RPM.
So it can go about 125 km/h.

How fast can it accelerate.
Another complex question. The peak power of the motor (around 70kW) is higher than the peak power my 45kW (peak) controller can deliver so initially the car will be controller limited. I have the parts to re-work my "other" controller to about 80kW so pretty much as soon as the car is safely debugged I will change over to the upgraded controller. They are physically identical - mounting, connections, everything.
The first graph is as it will go on the road, the second is with the upgraded controller.
To give these some perspective, the original Vogue did 0-100km/h in 17, 21 or 25 seconds - depending on where you get your information.

Thanks to "woody" from the AEVA forums for the extremely complex spreadsheet that takes everything - batteries, motor, controller, car Cd, weight, rolling resistance etc. - into consideration. Predictions from this spreadsheet have been verified on a real EV.

Range - or How far can you go on a charge?

I get asked a lot about the range of the car.
The calculations show the EVogue's projected range to be as shown in this graph.

A glossy brochure would advertise it as "Up to 160Km range". You can see that you would have to be driving at 20Km/h to get that far!
It turns out that the faster you go, the less far you can go. It has a lot to do with how "slippery" the car is when travelling through the air. The Vogue has no published figure for Cd (Coefficient of Drag) so it is yet to be determined (I have guessed at Cd = 0.45 and frontal area = 2m square).

These projections are based on flat and level driving with no start/stop and no hills so the real-world figures will be less. I'm estimating by about 15% but it will be very interesting to find out for sure. The hills don't matter too much as the motor will act as a generator (regenerative braking) when going down hills and even when stopping. In that way I get a large portion of the energy expended going up hills and accelerating, back again.

Battery Tray Bottom and Controller Tray Mounting

I cut the slots in the 3mm Aluminium tray and siliconed it in. I used two of the packs to hold it down. These 3 packs will have either Gaffer tape or metal tape (middle one) sealing them from road grime. I have taped over the screw holes as well. The reason I can't use gaffer tape on all 3 is that the middle pack barely fits between the engine mounting plates - gaffer tape would peel off as I slid the pack into position.

I took the plunge and drilled the holes in the chassis rail extensions that Humber so generously put there for me. The controller tray is the stainless steel tray above the red circles.
This is a view in through the front of the car where the radiator block-out panel normally lives.

Close up. We just use a stainless steel 'L' bracket. I have yet to drill the holes in the the controller tray.

Motor Coupler

The motor coupler sits between the motor's 38mm shaft and the front drive shaft flange. It was mild steel so had to be painted. I chose red. I figure you have to crawl under the car to see it so I'd make it easy to spot.

Mounting the Chargers

The front battery pack chargers are going to be mounted as a little tower of 4 and another tower of 3.
I had some brackets bent up a few weeks ago.

I use the four case screws to hold the back of the charger in but I needed some 1mm aluminium to do the front.








Well they are re-doing the offices downstairs at work - and look what was left behind one night. I'm sure it was scrap. Anodized and all!

There were enough straight pieces to get my 14 of 50mm by 18mm front pieces.



Which become these. (Need holes drilled.)

The front of the charger is held in by these which allow me to remove the middle chargers without taking out all the ones on top. Just undo the rear 4 screws and the front 2 then slide the offending charger out. I haven't drilled the front 2 holes for this first one yet. I might use root nuts...

Rear Axle Breather Blocked

I changed both seals on the back axle of the Vogue a few years ago but I noticed when re-doing the brakes about a year ago (to get it back on the road), that they were still leaking a bit. Well on the hillman yahoo list, the subject of pressure building up in the back axle came up. It seems that after 45 years or so the rear axle breather hole is generally blocked and the slight pressure causes oil to be expelled either via the axle bearing seals or the differential pinion seal. It took some scraping and about 15 minutes to find it even though I had measurements of where to look. I had to wash the are in petrol to find it. Yep - blocked!
This is looking down on top of the axle casing. The black vertical pipe is a rear shock absorber.

Hope that fixes it...

Lower Battery Cradle gets a Bottom

I am unhappy with the way the 3 battery packs fit into the motor/battery mount in the front as there is no support for the middle of the battery packs and they tend to sag a tiny bit (these three mount on their sides). I have bought a piece of 3mm thick aluminium sheet 300 x 600mm. Of course, when I tore the rubber off the lower mount (where the packs sit) half the black paint came off. I have to clean off the rest of the glue and repaint it - then I'll silicon the aluminium sheet into the bottom of the tray (sparingly - just to stop it moving).

The packs sag into those big gaping holes. I thought the packs would be strong enough but they are not.


I have cut the sheet to fit and hopefully tonight I'll cut the slots for the battery hold-down straps.
A bit of paint then fit it in - maybe tomorrow.

This Weekend To-Do List

There's a bit of despondency in the EVogue household at the moment. We're all pretty busy and the headlining is weighing down on us. So this weekend I'm hoping to get the bow loops re-sewn (about 3 of them were cut back too far), and have another go at getting the headlining in. Apparently I should not have removed it before checking more carefully if the back section was going to fit down the rear pillars. When it's ready, I'll just put the rear bow in to check the pillar fit.

I'm still messing with the controller tray layout but I think I have pretty much covered all reasonable possibilities so, if no headlining progress, I can start drilling holes in the tray.

Oh, and Jeff from Precision Balancing just rang and my drive shaft is ready. No time today so I'll pick it up Monday.

Boot Lid Insulation

On the cup weekend (just gone), the Boot (Trunk to readers in the USA) lid received the same treatment as the bonnet.

A layer of battery pack foam. (The brown boxes are my chargers - a handy source of clamping weight until the glue sets.)




Then the silver roof insulation foil. I stopped halfway down the back so I could easily bolt lights, trim and number plates on.

I think I might treat the parcel shelf (behind the rear seats) the same way.

The Bonnet Closes!

Putting the bonnet back on the car this past weekend was a big deal for me. As much as I have measured and estimated, I really didn't think that the bonnet was going to close with the controller on its mounting tray.
The curves of the Vogue bonnet made it very difficult to be sure.
Note the controller poking over the top. (No the wood isn't permanent).

View from left hand side of car near passenger door. The fuse/contactor box (clear lid) has to be elevated 40mm to clear the cable glands from the DC-DC converters. The single charger behind the controller will be a stack 4 high with another stack 3 high nearer to the fuse/contactor box. A few compromises but it'll all fit.

 Alongside...

The stuff is really in there! The controller cleared the bonnet by about 35mm at the front. I put my hand up through the grill opening to check. The controller tray is supported on the wood - now I can bolt it in.

The revised layout in Google Sketchup.

Added labels to one photo 25 Nov 2010.

Front Trays Trial Fit

A real pack and my cardboard one.

The battery packs look like they will clear the bonnet easily (heater blower is out again until this stuff is finalised).

The black tray mounts are made from 6mm steel. I haven't bolted the upper tray front mounts down yet - I'll use 10mm high tensile bolts/nuts.

This is the Front Battery tray right hand rear mount bolted to where the clutch master cylinder would have been in a manual. There is a strong plate on the cabin side of the firewall (shown in earlier posts about the refurbished brake pedal).

Front Battery tray front left hand mount.

The other side is a mirror image copy of this as the Vogue was shipped ready for left/right hand drive.

Left hand side in the engine bay.















Left hand side in the cabin - view of the firewall showing the 5mm steel reinforcing plate.

The four top battery packs (with tray) will weigh a total of 52kg so the tray (by law) must be able to stay in the car with a 20g forward force  - over 1000kg.

10g in all other directions.

The battery packs sit on and are surrounded by 5mm neoprene strips and strapped in with 300kg rated camlock straps.

You can just see the radiator hole blocking 2mm aluminium plate on the left in this photo (the grey vertical slab) - it will be flat black so you won't know it hasn't got a radiator behind the grill.

The controller tray is the lower one and isn't bolted in yet.

I'll have to pull it all out again to finish the motor and battery wiring - kind of chicken and egg.

This weekend we will put the bonnet back on (I hope) and see if the AC controller on the lower tray will clear.
(Two pictures added 26/08/2011 to show left hand side reinforcing of battery mounting on firewall.)

Motor Coupler and Unicorns

I took this picture at the same time as the ones with the coupler on the motor.
When someone at work saw it they said I should post it. The Unicorn sheet is covering the floor of the car while we mess with the headlining (to ensure it stays clean - the headlining, not the floor).
Remarks about magical Unicorns and Electric Cars were rife when it was spotted
You might notice it looks slightly shorter than the other photo. It is - by about 5mm. The 38mm bore was the same length as the protruding end of the motor shaft and it would have hit the bearing casing. Better safe...

Motor Coupler and Driveshaft

Back at the start of this year I sought out a few companies that did drive shafts (tail shafts) in my area of Melbourne. I kind of knew what I wanted to do, but not really how to go about it. Basically I knew I needed a sliding spline on the motor end of the drive shaft and I would have to get my old one extended by about 200mm.

The third company I rang didn't balk at all at the mention of a 3 phase motor in a car (the others did!) and were amazing helpful straight away in that they could make the coupler (38mm motor shaft to flange) and the drive shaft to match. I have found Jeff, Russell (now left) and Graeme a delight to deal with at Precision Balancing in Ferntree Gully.
Anyway - to the point. I contacted them again at the start of September and dropped my old tail drive shaft in mid September.
The coupler was ready last week.

I finally got to remove that blue insulation tape from the motor shaft. I cleaned it with enamel thinners to de-sticky it.

After some minor tweeks the coupler slid smoothly onto the motor shaft.

I have measured the motor flange to differential flange dimension and given it to the guys. Drive shaft next.
It will look something like this one.
The left hand end connects to the motor coupler flange.

Meanwhile, I pulled the headliner out again last night for some slight changes - nothing major. We should get it back in (for good) on the weekend.

Headlining basically in

We installed the headlining (at least with clips) during the weekend.
It has to come out again as we have a problem that the roof insulation is too thick to allow the lining to hang correctly without intervention. The trouble is you can't get at the way the lining hangs off the bows once you have installed the next bow. We also may have cut one back a little bit too far. Anyway - it pretty much fits and will look good once the sides are tensioned up.

The Rag Stealer strikes again

This time it's my cork sanding block. Super duper mild steel front battery tray mounts (painted black) near the scene of the crime.

The getaway!

Sunvisor Rebuild

The vinyl on the sunvisors was sticky and deformed.
Upon removing the vinyl, the foam underneath was old and falling apart. I also wanted something a bit firmer.

Battery packing stuff again! Cut to shape and glued to the wire frame (sorry, forgot to show the wire frame before making new ones). Once glued, I tapered the edges with scissors to get a rounded shape (edge not shown).

They will be finished in the same velour as the headlining. Oh, and no vanity mirror - sorry, too difficult. If necessary I'll carry one in the glove box and will look at mounting one in there as well.

Caught Pretending to be a Motor

My daughter caught this a few weeks ago while I was installing the steering box.
I thought I'd better post it.
The caption could read "No really - it's going to be electric powered".

Underside of Bonnet Treatment

The underside of the bonnet wasn't painted with the rest of the car so something had to be done. The original had some quilt like construction for sound/heat proofing held in place by a wire contraption - none of it was usable.
Here is the before photo with the insulation gone.

There are 8 of these shipped as packaging with every battery pack. So I have over 90 of them. They are about 10mm thick and 200 x 400mm. We slapped one of them in the heat oven at work and ran it up to 80 degrees C. It handled it quite well with only a slight amount of curling.

So I glued ten of them together along the edges.

I then stuck the left over foil insulation from when the garage was restored to the panel. I used the contact adhesive (brushable) bought from the auto-upholstery place. It was then cut to shape so some of it tucked in around the edges and finally glued into the bonnet with 3M Hi-tack #76 spray adhesive (you can see the can on the lower left).
Home made dynamat!
Prior to gluing the insulation on I painted the frame part of the underside with the same enamel paint I had mixed up for the engine bay (after cleaning it with thinners).
The intention is to help stop radiant heat from the bonnet heating up the engine bay battery packs on hot summer days.

Headlining Replacement - Making the Headlining

At the start of the Vogue project we (wife and I) had decided to totally strip the Red Vinyl interior and replace it with a light grey and dark blue velour trim. The job we were (and still are) least looking forward to was replacing the headlining. The headlining is the bit of Vinyl or fabric above your head that lines the inside of the roof. Older cars have what is called a "suspended" or bowed headlining.

The headlining is held in place by bowed pieces of metal that clip to the sides of the inside of the roof.

Here the vinyl headlining is peeled back showing one of five bows.

The headlining was carefully removed and layed out.

The new headlining fabric. This isn't the same grey as we will be using for the two-tone interior. This is a little darker and was recommended for the headlining.

Marked up with dressmaking chalk ready to cut.

The other half does her bit.

The bows are threaded through a loop of fabric the runs the width of the headlining. The old lining used a kind of calico. We are using satin because we could get it in the correct width.

The headlining isn't in yet but we did find a 15mm thick acoustic foam to replace the old horsehair (or something) insulation in the roof. Here is it glued in with the bows holding it in temporarily.

Actually installing the headlining... well soon.