Support for Evie cars

Dedicated to the conversion sold by the now defunct Electric Car Company

Moderator: mattcarr

Grumpy-b
Posts: 991
Joined: Sat Dec 01, 2007 12:06 pm

Re: Support for Evie cars

Postby Grumpy-b » Thu Mar 07, 2013 11:52 am

The Curtis just measures the current flow and not the direction of flow. In reality its actually a very small amount of power that gets put back to the cells, but worse is that since the curtis is reading current and disregarding direction it continues to measure it as discharge, so just makes it worse.
I have asked Curtis about any options with this, and will post any response.
On the heater front one thing you could consider is a PWM controller for the heater, It would be a pain to incorporate in the existing controls, but not impossible. But it would need a heck of a power capability to control 2 to 4kw or whatever yours has. If I remember yours has a simple Metal housing and heating element, so you could just use a simple adjustable electronic thermostat and relayetc to make the temp of the small container adjustable from inside the car. RApid electronics do a simple educational circuit board Thermostat using a Thermister, I have used loads of these and they are very easy to modify. They do however need a decent 9 to 12v supply to function otherwise they drift a lot. Box etc in the engine bay, and simple 3 leads to a Pot under the dash.
I have spoken to Zivan about multiple chargers and in theory you could just connect two in parallel, as the BMS controls the voltage. But the charger isnt just a std Zivan but is modified to work in this way.
Higer top speed is difficult, you may be able to up the max RPM, but the torque of the motor goes downhill with RPM, so its not really an option. You could fit slightly larger wheels and tyres, so taking the gearing up a bit. All the gears are still in the box, but I dont think putting it in another gear is a good solution, as low speed and take off would be hampered.

Grumpy-b

Grumpy-b
Posts: 991
Joined: Sat Dec 01, 2007 12:06 pm

Re: Support for Evie cars

Postby Grumpy-b » Thu Mar 28, 2013 9:07 am

The very early cars had another BMS. It was a lot simpler but has no data storage and download. These cars have no 9pin serial connection as there isnt one!!!!

Its a bit of a pain as these cars cannot simply be sorted if there is a problem. The only way I can see to isolate the poor cells is to connect to the sense connection in the loom and plug on a separate logging device or check each cell under load separately. All a pain as you have to take the front off the car to do this, including the Bumper bar behind the plastic front.

These BMS have no separate Bleed box, but have a separate Bleed wire to each cell and two boards in the Alloy box, with one or more 40mm fans on the side. I will try and find out some more details of these BMS.
Photos to follow.

Grumpy-b

mattcarr
Posts: 389
Joined: Sat May 12, 2007 2:27 pm
Location: Hampshire

Re: Support for Evie cars

Postby mattcarr » Fri Mar 29, 2013 9:47 am

Be interesting to see some pictures. I would have to say, that I imagine that the data logging side of things is probably the most complex part of the BMS, and probably grew out of a necessity to know what the histroy was one the cells in the car so that they could begin to learn how the cells behaved when used, and to learn how to ensure that they are kept healthy.

Grumpy-b
Posts: 991
Joined: Sat Dec 01, 2007 12:06 pm

Re: Support for Evie cars

Postby Grumpy-b » Sun Apr 07, 2013 8:20 pm

The early BMS is basically similar to the one designed by the EVC the chaps from the channel islands. This system also used the Curtis controller to display data, and using the small push button switch gives an option to view on the curtis monitor the current lowest cell number and its voltage.
This BMS can just be fairly safely plugged and un plugged. Each cell also has two wires, one that senses voltage and a separate one used to bleed the cell. The later unit that ECC used, uses one wire.
I didnot take any photos, but I will shortly have one if these BMS units and will take some shots then.

Grumpy-b

Grumpy-b
Posts: 991
Joined: Sat Dec 01, 2007 12:06 pm

Re: Support for Evie cars

Postby Grumpy-b » Tue May 07, 2013 6:46 pm

Just had a rather surprising problem.
Motor drops down causing OS driveshaft to fall out of the tripod joint. Total loss of movement.
There were two approaches to the end mount of the motor, one had two pieces with a flat plate on the motor and a multi bend plate with two bolts to the flat plate, the later ones had a one piece with three Right angle bends. This was one of the latter and had sheared at the first bend from the flat motor end plate. I believe this could have been caused by excessive press brake force / too sharpe a tool. This caused a very noticable indent to the inside bend of the plate. Exactly where the failure propogated from. Not easy to see at all once Powder coated. So I welded the plate and welded the other two bends on both sides as well. On re fitting it was also evident that the plate touched the underside of the battery tray. So this had to be spaced off with a couple of suitable washers. Worth checking your motor mount on the OS, does not touch the battery steel case.. Drive shaft went back together OK once the shaft was removed, cleaned and re greased.

This car also had a Petrol burner for a heater, the fuel tank had used parts of an alloy heater fitted to early cars, and this is now in the front of the Nearside wheel arch and the petrol heater was fitted in the front of the motor mount with a headr tank above it. Difficult to see it all as its a tight fit. I will ask the owner about the mod and how its worked.
Grumpy-b
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Last edited by Grumpy-b on Wed May 08, 2013 7:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.

genawin
Posts: 66
Joined: Wed Apr 11, 2007 5:39 am
Location: north somerset

Motor mount

Postby genawin » Wed May 08, 2013 5:26 am

I had the same happen to me about 6 weeks ago - ours is made of one piece 40mm quadrant connecting the end plate to the cast rubber mount , the bolts had sheared from working loose due to torque reaction and there was evidence it had happened before , so i made up a second fixing that sits on top where the end plate joins the quadrant to stop it twisting, al l is well now.
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