ADAM SMITH COLLEGE >>>EV

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TOPGUN
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ADAM SMITH COLLEGE >>>EV

Postby TOPGUN » Thu Jun 03, 2010 11:11 am

Hi Guys,

Firstly thank you for creating this forum. I found loads of useful information here. We students at Adam Smith College, Fife are in the process of converting MR2. We have purchased the donor car and are in the process of buying the motor and batteries.

For the motor we plan to get and AC motor around 15-20KW, with a 120 operting voltage. Please let me know of good sources to buy that. Once we finish the car, we plan to do a 600 mile trip from John O Groats to Lands end. Obviously we will be making various stops to charge up. A total of 10 days have been reserved for the tour.

We would need your help in buying the equipment. Please let us know good sources for EV parts in UK.

Thank you all. I will keep you posted with our progress.

Best regards

TOPGUN

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timpootle
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Re: ADAM SMITH COLLEGE >>>EV

Postby timpootle » Thu Jun 03, 2010 12:03 pm

Welcome TOPGUN! Sounds like an ambitious project.

What I tell everyone (but ignored myself) is 'buy the batteries last'. You will no doubt encounter many unexpected problems during the course of your project, and lithium batteries are said to lose capacity while sat on the shelf.

Once you have a completed car with motor and controller in place, use second hand lead-acid batteries to get it moving before risking your expensive lithium.

I am, of course, making several assumptions here. Tell us more about your plans and we will advise you accordingly.
Tim Crumpton

TOPGUN
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Re: ADAM SMITH COLLEGE >>>EV

Postby TOPGUN » Thu Jun 03, 2010 12:48 pm

Cheers Tim,

We have a budget of £8000 out of which £550 is gone for the purchase of the car.

We have got a MR2 1991. Its a nice slick car. As for the drive, we are still undecided. Half of us are split in going for an AC drive. The other half want DC. We are scanning our local scrap yards for motors but not sure how to go about the controller even if we manage to get a good motor from there.

One obvious fact that goes into the AC drive's favour is hilly roads in Scotland. We will encounter loads of roads with over 20% incline.

regards Topgun

JonSpence
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Re: ADAM SMITH COLLEGE >>>EV

Postby JonSpence » Thu Jun 03, 2010 1:37 pm

TOPGUN wrote:For the motor we plan to get and AC motor around 15-20KW, with a 120 operting voltage. Please let me know of good sources to buy that.


I'm sure that Night Train will be along shortly to comment. He's converting a MR2 as well. However you might just have a few problems sourcing that exact drive train.

Most easily available motors working at that sort of voltage are DC. You can get AC motors and controllers, but the choice is more limited.

This place does a good selection of stuff, but is not cheap.
http://www.everything-ev.com/parts-for- ... -c-65.html

Their AC motors are 80V nameplate.

Of course it is possible to speak to a controller manufacturer and match it to a rewound motor, but it's more work.

IMHO the AC route requires a lot of initial capital. I would claim that AC is technically better, but the controller has more bits so costs more and there are not many second hand "low voltage" AC motors.

Here is another link that may be of interest, but it doesn't leave much money for the batteries.
http://www.greenmotorsport.com/green_mo ... 26796.html

TOPGUN
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Re: ADAM SMITH COLLEGE >>>EV

Postby TOPGUN » Thu Jun 03, 2010 1:50 pm

Thanks Jon for the links. We are hunting our scrapyards to see if we get lucky (low voltage AC motor). If not, there is also consideration for 240V AC with a batterypack of 300 Volts.

Does any one know how high power DC motor will perform on a hilly terrain??? If they are reasonable, we might go for them. Makes life easy. Thanks again for your help jon. We look forward to replies from Night Train

duxuk
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Re: ADAM SMITH COLLEGE >>>EV

Postby duxuk » Thu Jun 03, 2010 6:40 pm

Sorry to be picky but 600 miles from John O' Groats will only land you in the Bristol area, not Lands End. Still I believe that the society members in that area are active and friendly, so at least you should be able to get a charge and a cup of tea.

Andrew.

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ChrisB
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Re: ADAM SMITH COLLEGE >>>EV

Postby ChrisB » Thu Jun 03, 2010 7:37 pm

TOPGUN wrote: Once we finish the car, we plan to do a 600 mile trip from John O Groats to Lands end. Obviously we will be making various stops to charge up. A total of 10 days have been reserved for the tour.



Hi Topgun, well you'll be the second EV'er to do that trip then :wink: our very own Terry Harding did the same trip on an electric scooter here viewtopic.php?f=18&t=1966 back in 2009, took him three attempts but he did do it 8) sadly its wasnt that well publicized though :(

Good luck with yours

ChrisB
I reject reality and substitute my own !!!!!!

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Night Train
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Re: ADAM SMITH COLLEGE >>>EV

Postby Night Train » Thu Jun 03, 2010 11:31 pm

You called? :wink:

I am converting the same car, 1991 rev 1. Mine is a G Limited import.
I have a thread here and a more involved thread on DIYelectriccar.com here.
It is a heavy car with not a lot of load capacity.


Ummmmm, first off I am using a 12" diameter motor that is 19" long. Don't go down this route, it doesn't fit. I am modifying a mk3 driveshaft that is both too short and has the wrong splines on it to give me clearence for the motor. Also there is no room for the coupler, I have had to push the coupler back into the DE (drive end) bearing.

I would say that the maximum diameter needs to be no more then 270mm to keep the driveshaft standard. You can go up to 280mm but will need to machine off the flange on the inner CV joint.

One thing that makes the MR2 easy is that there are four engine gearbox mounts and three of them are on the gearbox.

You could use twin or stacked/siamesed pancake (axial flux) motors or a Warp9 or ex forklift truck equivilent if going DC drive.

Do you have a workshop manual? The only one available is a badly photocopied Toyota dealership book on PDF. Beware of buying from Ebay as the one I bought was incomplete and missing most of the non engine pages. I have a better one and can send you a copy on CD if you need it. PM me.


Engine removal. Best dropping it out from below with the suspension and cross member/subframe removed, however a ceasarian is possible out the top if you can remove both manifolds and the alternator and AC compressor first.

Keep all the loom, throw nothing away, not even the sensors from the engine.

Once the engine is out measure the 'magic number'. That is the diatance from the mating face of the engine/bell housing to the clutch face of the flywheel. 38mm for mine. That will determine the spacing of the motor to the gearbox primary shaft.
The MR2 gearbox primary shaft does not have a pilot bearing. That makes it easy to go clutch free but makes it more difficult to align the motor by the trial and error method unless the clutch is absolutely centred on the flywheel.
If you have the means to accurately measure the bell housing centre and all the holes I would be interested in a plot or set of co-ordinates for it please.


What plans do you have for heating?
I took out the heater matrix and then found that I needn't have bothered.
You can leave it in place and install a wet heating system that pumps through the original matrix and then run the system as normal with conventional controls.
If you are going for an electric dry element then use the AC box. The AC matrix is housed in a huge box that can be accessed once the glove box is removed. You can adapt and install a ceramic heating element into it and then run the heater as normal with the controls on cold and a seperate switch for the element.

Don't even think about removing the heater matrix even if you don't want to use it. The dash needs to come out along with all the door surround trim, steering wheel and centre console and tunnel cover.

Don't forget to remove the fuel tank and all the pipes in the tunnel. If you have the right shaped battery pack you can use that space to keep the CoG low and to save space elsewhere. There is also space behind the front bumper where the radiators are. You can fill the big vent holes under the bumper and get a smoother shape, protecting the batteries from stone damage at the same time.
You may also be able to use the space under the boot floor when the exhaust is out.

For advice about the MR2 try The MR2 Owners Club. I am there as Woodsmith. The American MR2 site might be better though as they have an EV forum.

Have a look at the Kickngas MR2 photos. Thread here.

Also Jon Cutshall's MR2.

Good luck. :D

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Night Train
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Re: ADAM SMITH COLLEGE >>>EV

Postby Night Train » Thu Jun 03, 2010 11:37 pm

I've just had a quick look at your college website.

How well is your college supporting and promoting your project?

I teach at Burnley College and I am struggling to get any interest there.
Maybe we can get our colleges talking to each other. :D

TOPGUN
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Re: ADAM SMITH COLLEGE >>>EV

Postby TOPGUN » Fri Jun 04, 2010 9:09 am

Thank Dux for letting us know about the extra mileage. Chris, cheers for pointing out that the trip has been done. Welldone Terry.


A bundle of thanks for Night Train. I guess we will be needing your expertise in the near future. Thanks for all the useful information you put forward. There is a lot of food for thought. Our college is very helpful in supporting us. In fact this project is being completely funded by college. Our marketing department is also doing its bit. So in terms of support, we are not short of that.

The decision is tilting for DC motor. The only problem I have heard with them is inability to climb and do long distance runs. Warp9 seems to be a popular DC choice. I am sure it will be able to climb as it seems powerful enough. Dont know if you can run the motor at very high rpm for 2 hours continuous.


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