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Electro Metro; Lotsa pics
Topic Started: Aug 23 2012, 11:40 PM (15,556 Views)
georandy
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:popcorn
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maxmpg
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:bigpop
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Johnny Mullet
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Fear the Mullet

Ride of the Month!
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evmetro


Ok, hang on. I wil go out take a pic..
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evmetro


45 cells in series, 100 ah, 144 volts.

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Flash
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53 mpg last trip

Wow, this is involved. I keep seeing Nissan Leafs talked about, what about the Chevy Volt approach?
A small, on-board, gas generator to replace some of the batteries. Figure out your amp usage at cruising speed, and size the generator to keep up. Maybe have a 200 - 500 mile range using the Metro's old gas tank.

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Stubby79
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Flash
Sep 1 2013, 01:25 AM
Wow, this is involved. I keep seeing Nissan Leafs talked about, what about the Chevy Volt approach?
A small, on-board, gas generator to replace some of the batteries. Figure out your amp usage at cruising speed, and size the generator to keep up. Maybe have a 200 - 500 mile range using the Metro's old gas tank.

The problem with that is in the efficiencies of the various components. Most generators are only about 65% efficient converting the mechanical energy produced into electrical. So if you've got a 6hp generator, you're only getting 4hp worth of electricity out of it. Then you throw in the efficiency of his controller and motor (don't ask me exactly how efficient his motor and controller are, but he'd be lucky to see 85%) and you've got even less.

You'd do better to have a small engine coupled right to the drive-train, so there is as little loss as possible, and any time it's producing more power than necessary, he could regenerate it back into his batteries.

EVMetro: is it my imagination or are you running two bus-bars between each cell? If not, what are the black curved pieces between them?
Edited by Stubby79, Sep 1 2013, 06:38 AM.
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t3ragtop
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Turbo3 and Twincam Tweaker

ev, your blue car is beautiful along with being functional.

your work makes mine look like shit on a white duck. :P
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evmetro


Flash, The most efficient automobiles on the road are pure electric, and efficiency is what I have in mind. An electric Metro gets 3 times the economy of a Prius. Many people are aware that going pure electric is way more efficient than gasoline or hybrids, but few take the time to look at how efficient one electric vehicle is compared to another. We all know on this forum that the Metro is THE mpg king, and I have carried Metros to the next generation where the Metro remains the king, but it is the "watt hours per mile king". The Nissan Leaf, Prius, and Volt don't stand a chance. The reason that the Metro is the king of economy for both the ICE age and (Internal Combustion Engine) and the new age is because it is lightweight and aerodynamic. The metro is not encumbered with a bunch of belt driven pumps, power windows, insulation and stuff that other cars have.
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evmetro


Stubby79, nice catch on the bus bars. The black curved ones came with the cells, but my math says that they were not big enough. I went down to my metal supplier and got a 12"x48" cut off of a 4x8 sheet of copper. I could have gotten more off of that sheet so that I could make my bus bars thicker, but that little 1 foot by four foot sheet of copper was $100. Since 12"x48" was the minimum, I would need to pay up another $100 to make my bus bars thicker. Anyways, I just added the cheesy bus bars to my good ones to make up what I needed. This will also allow the bus bars to run a bit cooler too.
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Coche Blanco
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evmetro
Sep 1 2013, 11:55 AM
Stubby79, nice catch on the bus bars. The black curved ones came with the cells, but my math says that they were not big enough. I went down to my metal supplier and got a 12"x48" cut off of a 4x8 sheet of copper. I could have gotten more off of that sheet so that I could make my bus bars thicker, but that little 1 foot by four foot sheet of copper was $100. Since 12"x48" was the minimum, I would need to pay up another $100 to make my bus bars thicker. Anyways, I just added the cheesy bus bars to my good ones to make up what I needed. This will also allow the bus bars to run a bit cooler too.
So it's like you're running two wires to carry the load of a larger wire, right?
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evmetro


Yep
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evmetro


Actually, it's like 5 wires doing the load of 1 big wire. My copper bus bars are three layers of copper sheet each, and the cheesy black ones are two 10 gauge wires crimped in parallel.
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evmetro


This ride got some love today. I gutted out the engine bay a little and gave the bottom half a light sanding and blasted a light layer of primer on, and kinda blended it into the top half. I am not doing a restoration, but I know that I need to make sure the frame horns are good and offer some protection for the future. There was not much for rust, but there was a little on the control arms so I addressed that while the suspension was out. I gave it a light coat of undercoat just on the bottom half.

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Next, I started building:

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evmetro


I was able to salvage most of the 0/3 cables from the lead battery setup that this ride came with, even though the component location is completely different. That green box is the battery charger, and that purple box is the controller for the motor. Those big ass relay things are the contactors for the shorepower. Since I run a male 110 volt inlet and a male 220 inlet, I use these contactors to isolate the two. The charger has two wires going in and does not care if it is 110 or 220 so both plugs are wired into one common line going to the charger. This means that you could plug in 220 and then go around to the 110 plug and measure 220 on those pins. We don't want anybody getting shocked, so those big ass relay things make it so that the plug that is not in use is safe. The wires that come out of the charger, the big ass relay things, and the charging plugs are 8-3 extension cord wire and are about the same diameter as the 0/3 cable that carries the high voltage from the batteries to the controller, so it all looks kind of uniform.

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That square aluminum thing is the battery tray for a small 12 volt battery that powers the head lights, horn, wipers and such. No need for a big starter battery. The black square thing on top of the transmission is just a shunt. The big ass 0/3 cable goes back to the negative terminal on my battery pack, so all the current that leaves the pack has to flow through this shunt which is just a means to measure how many amps flow through it. I use this info to display stuff from the dash... instrumentation.
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