Electric Car Conversion 101 video 005

video Electric Car Conversion 101 video 005

See how to convert a Dodge Neon to a 300V AC Electric Car - step by step - through this video series!

In part 5, we lay out the bolt holes to mount the motor to the adapter plate

See this and other videos at:
http://greencarvideos.blogspot.com

SERiAlkillER says: Dec 10, 2008. 7:37 PM

dchall8 "Rather than using one motor and transmission, did you consider eliminating the transmission and using two smaller motors?..."

as to weather or not they considered it here's why it won't work, (for a better explination goto http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_(mechanical_device)) becouse there wouldn't be any way to change the speed of the wheels individually, as is need when you try and turn a car. and even if you could, maybe with a computer, speed one up and slow one down, thousands of times a minute, you would need to write one hell of a program to run it, of cource if you did write such a program, the $100,000 that ford offered, and as far as i no is still offering, would weight the car down so much that it wouldn't be reasionable to have an ev.

wgriffith in reply to SERiAlkillERNov 15, 2012. 3:50 PM

Just use a indy differential pumpkin and one motor. no shifting gears.

kimos says: May 23, 2009. 9:02 PM

Where do I find the motor size specs, how do you power a 300 AC motor from batteries, and how many batteries does that take. That motor is huge compared to my 3hp Citicar motor.

burgener says: Jan 25, 2009. 3:28 PM

All the white lines might be easier to mark out, if you had available a CAD system and parge enough plotter. With a CAD system, you could draw the "layout" full scale, plot it out, and use the paper as a "template" for the centerpunch points.

heartlessangel7 in reply to burgenerFeb 10, 2009. 1:48 AM

That's nice. But this is analog version.

Payser says: Jan 21, 2009. 6:29 PM

Too Amazing! Your videos are very well executed. Highly informative. Please, keep them coming. I am learning alot.

killrsheep says: Jan 19, 2009. 12:04 AM

Wow great instructable videos!, i cant wait for the next video, ive just finished studying Mechanical Electric engineering (hell i dont even have my degree yet) and i really want to start building a small EV coupe little by little, i hope you keep making these videos. This kind of stuff is just the way into the next gen of transportation wishing u a successfull 2009 and good luck man!

SERiAlkillER says: Dec 10, 2008. 7:37 PM

heres a question why isn't any one buildin a hydrostatic ev?

bennelson (author) in reply to SERiAlkillERDec 11, 2008. 6:35 AM

I know there was some talk about that on the Electric Vehicles Discussion List a little while ago.

UPS is actually experimenting with hydraulic hybrid delivery trucks.
http://www.pressroom.ups.com/mediakits/factsheet/0,2305,1315,00.html
Apparently, the hydraulic system can recover more energy with braking than a pure motor/generator electrical system can: great for heavy vehicles with lots of start and stop!

bennelson (author) says: Nov 12, 2008. 11:18 AM

Hey dchall8, thanks for your comments. We are planning on making sure to integrate feedback on these videos into future videos that we make. We may do an "E-mail Bag" or something similar to make a video reply on questions such as using one motor vs two, etc. -Ben Man behind the camera PS: I really like the laser pointer idea!

vr38dett_fast in reply to bennelsonNov 15, 2008. 11:33 AM

nice job.. i was wondering if you could submerge the motor and wires in dry ice or liqud nitrogen to reduce alot of heat potential and maybe intergrate the whole mineraloil concept...

bennelson (author) in reply to bennelsonNov 12, 2008. 11:22 AM

Oh, I forgot to mention, the white lines were only used because they showed up on camera so much better. The actual markings were done with a very fine point scribe. I will be sure to mention that sort of thing in future videos.

Mike8913 in reply to bennelsonJan 1, 2009. 12:50 PM

Maybe you could help me out. I've always wondered why hybrids like the Prius always relied on braking to regenerate power and only braking. How come no one has strapped motors to the back wheels (free spinning) and wired them into the battery pack to generate additional power. Is that feasible for you project? could you strap 2 motors (small ones) to the back wheels to feed your batteries while driving to extend your range? Or would the added weight negate any gains you make? Just curiosity really, its always boggled my mind why this hasn't been done yet. there has to be a good reason.

bennelson (author) in reply to Mike8913Jan 1, 2009. 1:09 PM

The trouble with wheel generators is simple. It's trying to build a perpetual motion machine. Electricity from the batteries powers the car down the road, turning the wheels, which would power the generator, which would put energy back into the batteries. However, every time you change energy from one form to another, you always loose some energy - usually as heat. You will never put more power back into the batteries than you get out of them. The only exception to this is if you already have used energy to get the car up to speed, and in fact you want to dump some of that motion energy - to slow down. Since you are now just wasting this energy, why not capture some of it and return it to the batteries? I have often heard that hybrid cars can improve their economy by about %15 through use of regenerative braking. Really good hybrid drivers try not to use the regenerative brakes at all. Rather, they try to coast more and let off the gas at just the right time. In this way, they just use less energy in the first place. Tom has come up with a clever way to turn his AC motor controller on and off through just using the brake pedal. This will allow him to choose between truely coasting and using regenerative brakes depending on the exact driving situation.

Mike8913 in reply to bennelsonJan 1, 2009. 2:34 PM

why not ditch regenerative brakes all together and just use the wheels as regenerative mechanisms. To avoid the Perpetual motion issue you could simply have the free spinning wheels engage a generator only when coasting. It seems you would gain some range from that. Admittedly, I don't know much about how those fancy brakes work but I imagine they can not be as efficient at generating as the wheels would be that are already in place.

GreenD in reply to Mike8913Feb 4, 2010. 2:11 PM

This would simply just convert the energy you used to push the car, back into energy to the battery or motor - this would actually just waste energy. It took you energy to make the back wheels spinning, so if you were to try to regenerate them it would just defeat the purpose of having sped them up - essentially this would just slow down your car, make it less efficient, and have a perpetual braking system on it.

Lego man says: Nov 13, 2008. 7:44 PM

Awesome videos, cant wait for the next ones.

GeekGod says: Nov 12, 2008. 1:09 PM

Great series of videos, looking forward to more.

dchall8 says: Nov 12, 2008. 11:00 AM

First of all thanks for going to the trouble of doing the videos and editing them. They are pretty good (and I'm a harsh critic of video Instructables).

I'm going to make all my comments for the first several videos here.

Starting with this video 005, never Never NEVER work from a drawing when you have the hardware. Always measure the actual holes in predrilled hardware and work from those measurements. Do you hear the faint voice of experience? Try breaking the studs out of a 60x60x6 inch concrete form where the studs were placed according to the drawing. We ended up re drilling the holes to fit. In this case I would find the motor shaft location relative to the mounting holes to ensure the motor was welded square (or whatever angle) to the mount itself. I believe your white marks made with the square will prove to be pure fantasy.
Also that measurement with the T-square against the plate in the front gives me the heebie jeebies. Assuming your weld is square, how can you be sure the front face of the transmission casting is square to the centerline of the transmission shaft? Surely there's an easy way to mount a laser pointer to the transmission shaft and measure the shaft extension centerline from that. Your copper pipe would probably hold a pointer. Spin the shaft and tweak the pointer holder until the laser marks a single spot on the wall. Then you can use the L-square to measure the height of the beam along the beam and thus ensure your motor shaft is aligned front to back, side to side.
Shouldn't you reinforce the 90 degree angle before bolting the weight of the transmission onto the mount? It is hard to see how sturdy that rig is, but I'm just sayin'.

Video 002
Again I question the wisdom of assuming the transmission casting has anything to do with being perpendicular to the shaft. If you know that then it's fine, but I would build this without that assumption.
If you were looking to shave some time off your video, I think anyone who would attempt this project already knows what a center punch is. Another way to locate the blind hole would be dye transfer or a putty imprint.

Video 001
I have to assume the motor manufacturer knows what he's doing putting that little keyway on the shaft. It just looks about the size of the keyway for the clutch on my 3 horsepower minibike. I guess it's really hard to tell the size difference once you zoom in on it. The key on my minibike caused more problems than any other part in the power train. If the motor comes with a spline shaft, I would opt for that.
Rather than using one motor and transmission, did you consider eliminating the transmission and using two smaller motors? Then you would run the CV shafts from the motor to each wheel with smaller versions of your coupler. Since there's U-joints on the CV shafts you don't have to worry nearly as much about alignment.
And I must tell you that if you had chosen to use two motors, I would have asked this question the other way, so I'm just looking for the rationale for your choices. It sounds like what you are doing is common practice among hobbiests.

You might also emphasize the importance of squaring your square if you are going to rely on it's squareness. L-Squares easily get out of calibration for square.

JowSithm says: Nov 12, 2008. 7:55 AM

Awesome!! Can't wait for the rest!