We're right in the guts of winter at the moment. We had a good long summer and a very gentle autumn, but now winter has poked us sharply with a cold, bony finger reminding us that the sunshine is no more...
Yes, we're having some unusually cold weather here as you can see by the photo of the Tredia (and the neighbourhood) covered in hail. We've had a few smatterings of hail this winter but I have never seen a cold blast like this before. It's quite incredible! All the neighbours were out throwing snowballs (well, iceballs) and taking photos. This sort of cold snap and this amount of hail is pretty unheard of in New Plymouth.
It must be global warming...
Hehehe
Some good news though, my 144V DC to 12V DC converter has arrived. It will allow me to power the headlights & accessories off the main battery pack as we've been doing a lot of night time driving lately. The separate accessories battery was fine for summer but it needs it's own charger and running cords across the lawn is getting annoying.
I should point out that it's not actually a DC to DC converter. In fact it's a power supply designed for high-power computer graphics cards using a standard AC input. I've been told it works fine with DC input and can even be "tweaked" to give 13.8 volts instead of 12 volts! If it works out then I'll have a 450 watt DC to DC converter for $150 US! DC to DC converters designed for electric vehicles are upwards of $300 US!
I should also point out that there is the very real possibility that I'll do something stupid and blow it up. So don't run out and buy one just yet...
Our Unspent Gas Money jar has reached $1000 since driving began in February. We've decided to increase the $40 a week up to $60 a week seeing as the price of gas has increased a lot since February. We're also driving a lot more than we used to as we don't have to worry about the cost of filling up anymore. Overall things are going well and we should have enough for a trip to tropical Fiji or Vanuatu by the end of the year. Thanks BP! ;)
My DC to DC converter has arrived but I'm waiting on instructions from the other side of the world to increase the voltage from 12 volts to 13.8 volts, and a much needed break from this rotten wet weather to open the car's bonnet. It's been rain rain and more rain for the past 3 weeks with no end in sight.
The Tredia (and my work van) are both getting stuck occasionally. My wife has got the hang of driving flat-out to reduce the risk of getting stuck. It just means mud goes absolutely everywhere! Even up the side of the house. We need that trip to Fiji sooner rather than later I think!
On the plus side, we have our heat pump (reverse-cycle air conditioner) installed and warming the house up very nicely! The rain may be pattering on the window right now but we're both comfy and warm, walking from room to room in t-shirts! (cue my big grin).
I took the Tredia for it's 6-monthly Warrant of Fitness inspection last week. You might remember I had to go for one back in the Inspection Video and the car failed on a sticking front brake and a missing headlight clip. Well, call me a traditionalist but it failed again! This time things were a little more serious though. While I was thankful the small rust bubbles at the back weren't an issue, I was surprised to find out all was not well with the braking system. To make a long story short I had the master cylinder replaced as it was leaking brake fluid. I should have expected it because (believe it or not) the "check brakes" light came on when I was less than 50 metres from the Warrant of Fitness station! I should have seen it coming! The rear wheel bearings needed replacing too as they're getting a little worn. After that work the car was given the green light and we're commencing another six months of electric-only driving.
The Tredia was in the media spotlight again! Reporter Matt Rilkoff ran a story in the Taranaki Daily News. It was basically a follow-up now that the car's been driving about for 6 months. Thanks Matt, and here's to another 6 months of driving past gas stations!
Good news! Not only is Spring officially here, but my DC to DC converter is finally up and running too!
The rain has begun to subside as winter retreats, leaving much warmer days and much happier Kiwis! It also gave me the opportunity to open the car's bonnet and play around with the DC to DC converter to see if I could make it work. You see it's not really a DC to DC converter. It's actually a computer graphics power supply. Buying a "proper" DC to DC converter from, say, evparts.com with the same 30 Amp output would have cost me $199 US + shipping. But by using a Thermaltake 450 Watt Power Express at $61 US + shipping from Amazon.com I kept $140 US in my pocket!
Now before you run out and buy one, you will have to modify it ever so slightly to change it from 12.05 volts output to around 12.70 volts for better performance. You can make it go up to a stable 13.7 volts before it's over-voltage protection kicks in but I found at that voltage too much load will switch it off. After tweaking it with the little 0-5k ohm potentiometer control-knob thingy (in the picture) I found 12.7 volts gave me super-stability even with every electric option in the car running full blast!
When I say you'll have to tweak it, I mean you'll have to take off the cover and remove the little resistory-thingy numbered R34, and replace it with some wire and a little potentiometer. The mains power input cable can simply have it's wall-plug chopped off and put straight across your battery pack. It runs fine on my battery pack anyway which is around 158 volts when fully charged. Once it's fired up you can adjust the voltage with the potentiometer until it's perfect for your car.
What I've done with my setup is completely remove the accessories battery, leaving the DC-DC converter powered up all the time, even during charging. This way I keep the my clock settings and radio presets and even with the extraction fan running the whole thing only uses 11 watts. It would take weeks to flatten the battery pack at that rate. Besides, if I'm going away for a long period of time I can always pull the circuit breaker knob - that'll kill everything!
Now don't be put off if it sounds too technical because if I can do this then anyone can. I was given some great instructions at diyelectriccar.com here with special thanks to the users Lazzer408 and RFengineers for telling me about these things and helping me figure out any problems I had.
Anyway, I'll chuck in a couple more photos down the bottom of the page and if you're interested in doing one yourself to save some cash then check out this thread!
Halfway through the month I decided to haul out the motor as the dreaded coupler squeak has returned. It looked like the coupler had shifted a millimetre again and started touching the gearbox housing. This time I took the car to the warehouse at my work and made use of the forklift! I tied a rope around the motor and threaded it through one of the forks on the forklift. It made life really easy and we had the motor out, fixed, and back in within three hours! I made sure the grub screws were pressed in hard into the dimples on the motor's shaft so it shouldn't move again with luck. The motor's nice and quiet again - let's just hope it stays that way.
What's not quiet however is the driver's side CV Joint. It makes a whopping great clunking noise whenever I accelerate and steer towards the left. Over the last week it's become so loud that people walking on the footpath actually turn around and look because of the noise. It used to be the other way around! It's quite embarrassing so I bit the bullet and paid the mechanic to fix it. I was going to try it myself but wised up at the last moment...
