Battery Vehicle Society

So, I have no idea why, because I'm lazy? I've been getting far more lax in my car purchases recently.

Anyhow, the Enfield's seller was under the impression that it had it's original controller lurking beneath that seat squab. But this to me doesn't look much like it belongs in the 70s



Bigger versions available here

Anyone got any idea what (controller?!) that is, should it be plugged in...? What's going on? Where's the tea?

Dunno, but you may have found some of the lost pieces of the TARDIS....

That is no way the orginal controller

I cant read whats on the what looks like a PLC unit there ???

Early Enfields to my knowledge had good old fashioned chunky vairable resistors that where switched in and out with contactors.

They then moved on to curtis controllers "I think" ??

As for what you have there ???????? I really dont know, but be a bit careful if you start pressing the buttons on the PLC as you could disturb the settings and end up with a load of different parameters on it.

Very odd that one, new one on me

ChrisB

Aaah. See, now what I was hoping for is 'Yes, that's a blah controller, and their manuals are available here(link)'. Hrm.

I was, it must be said, quite surprised when I lifted up the cover and looked at that. There's quite a few bits of paper with the car, and none of them mention a new controller. Rats...

There is a shot with slightly better lighting on which you might be able to pick out the brand (I remember it said 'Easy' on it), I think, but that's on the other computer (and technically I'm meant to be reading about Central Cyanosis at the moment), so it'll have to wait...

Still, exciting stuff... It has a connector on it which (isn't connected but) goes to that dc supply, although I suspect that might be for programming it? With the car switched off? Or something. No idea really...

ChrisB wrote:Early Enfields to my knowledge had good old fashioned chunky vairable resistors that where switched in and out with contactors.

Early Enfields had a contactor controller that switched the batteries in various stages of parallel/series and did a similar thing with the motor field coil to give extra stages.

They experimented with various alternatives like Cableform SCR controllers (with regen), but Curtis controllers are usually a later owners retro-fit.

I don't think you're looking at the controller at all, very little of it looks big enough. I think you're looking at part of the charger setup.

When a vehicle has been messed about with, often the best solution is to rip everything out, take stock of what you're got, and replace or refit as appropriate. Make your own wiring diagrams as you go along.

If you do this you'll find a lot of the dodgy joints, chafed cables, etc. etc. that cause huge amounts of grief later on.

I don't think you're looking at the controller at all, very little of it looks big enough. I think you're looking at part of the charger setup.

Well, I presume it's under it, or that's related to it. Because I couldn't see anything anywhere else. Mind, JP said he'd pop by when he gets a chance, and have a good look over the car, so hopefully we can get a more sane idea of what's going on.

When a vehicle has been messed about with, often the best solution is to rip everything out, take stock of what you're got, and replace or refit as appropriate. Make your own wiring diagrams as you go along.

Not really terribly practical though.

Okies

Here's a better shot of the ?controller ?charger circuit...



much bigger

Does anyone have any idea what it is?

It's a PLC, a Programmable Logic Controller.

What it actually does is anobody's guess. It's probably being used to supervise the charging, but it could conceivably be part of the motor controller.

If you can find a manual for it, you may be able to read the programe out and work out what it's doing.

What do you know about the car so far?

Controller?

Charger?

DC/DC?

Mmmmm its looking more like a basic timer controller I recon. As paul says looks like something to do with the charger.

No sign of a manual yet but more info here
http://www.klocknermoeller.com/easy412/ ... -dc-rc.htm

Of course you might have found out more by now

ChrisB

Not really had a chance to find out more. The car's 50 miles away from me; so the intention was she could have it and drive it. Discovering that she can't use the external charger and that the on-board one doesn't work is therefore a bit of a problem.

That PLC isn't plugged in at the moment - at least, it doesn't appear to be. And if that area isn't the controller I'm now completely lost as to where the controller is on the car, because it's not anywhere obvious...

As to what I know about it - it's supposedly running on 48Volts, and the previous owner thought it had the original controller and original charger.... There's lots of bits of documentation with the car, but nothing that suggests it was at any point modified; which clearly it has been...

And that's about where I stand.