Re: "Racing" the Duff Beer Electric Car

Got it done today:

http://www.carolinahondas.com/members/roger-albums-pj-picture6724-gen1.jpg

Even with the heavy steel frame, it still flexes a bit. This thing really needs to be bolted to a concrete slab. It is also just too big and heavy for the Plymouth TC3 chassis. A normal cheap-ass 13500/11000 HF generator weighs about 1/3 what this does and takes up 1/3 the space. As magnificent as this is, it may be headed back to CL from whence it came.

Also, Ricky bought 58kwh worth of BMW i3 batteries, so it looks like we'll be doing a battery upgrade from our Volt batteries:

http://www.carolinahondas.com/members/roger-albums-pj-picture6725-batteries58kw.jpg

Everybody grab your brooms, it's shenanigans!

Re: "Racing" the Duff Beer Electric Car

It could tow the generator without much problem, but adding the extra ton of mass makes it a bit hard to drive.

And the Samsung batteries total around 1500lbs. (mix of 2P4S and 2P5S modules. BMW uses 1P12S that weigh 55lbs each.) These batteries came from a solar PV project -- i.e. something Samsung actually sells, vs. having to disassemble a $9k BMW battery to get more. (or a $2k volt) And these things are tiny -- 13x7x7.

Duff Beer Civic (#128) -- 2014 Sebring - Class B (#1 of 7), 2016 Barber - Class B
1981 Jet Electrica 007 [Plymouth Horizon TC3] (#128) -- Mk.1 - Index of Effluency Eco (IOEe) @ 2016 Lemons South Fall, Mk.2 - Judges' Choice @ 2017 'Shine Country Classic, Mk.3 - Index of Effluency @ 2017 Southern Discomfort

Re: "Racing" the Duff Beer Electric Car

I see it showed up on CL.

Re: "Racing" the Duff Beer Electric Car

Yeah, yesterday after I pulled the car around and pulled a few thousand watts out of it, it was obvious that the mounting frame still has visible flex. After what happened with the last coupler, I'm not comfortable with much flex between the engine and the gen head. As it sits, this would have to be bolted down to a concrete slab to be stable.

Looking at how others do this, you either need to bolt the engine casing to the gen head casing, and mine won't do that because of where they cast the mounting points, mount them both sideways and convert it to belt drive, which has me dealing with belts needing tensioning and slipping, or put it on a much thicker mounting frame, which makes it too big to get in the car.

I've still got enough 5" c-channel  to make another mounting frame to weld to the bottom of the current frame, which will hopefully be enough to stop the flexing. I'll try that today, and probably get the sight glass on the water hopper and get it prettied up a bit.

Everybody grab your brooms, it's shenanigans!

Re: "Racing" the Duff Beer Electric Car

I have to give Lemons some credit. I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't know how to weld if not for Lemons.

I built another frame out of 5" c-channel and welded it to the mounting frame for the gen set:

http://www.carolinahondas.com/members/roger-albums-pj-picture6726-gen5.jpg

This is much more stable under load. I think that I got enough metal under it to keep it from twisting itself apart.

Everybody grab your brooms, it's shenanigans!

Re: "Racing" the Duff Beer Electric Car

This is definitely the best Jet Electrica 007... in the world.

Re: "Racing" the Duff Beer Electric Car

http://www.carolinahondas.com/members/roger-albums-pj-picture6727-miami1.jpg

I am in a van, a little over halfway to Miami, where tomorrow morning Ricky and I will pick up 58kwh of BMW i3 batteries (or get murdered, in CL transactions like this, someone usually gets murdered). These are more compact than Volt batteries; we should be able to stuff enough of them in the car to race for hours. We'll also run them at a higher voltage level and have more of them in parallel, so we should be pretty quick (or blow up).

I was reading a review if the BMW i3 Range Extender, which is just a two-cylinder gas engine in the rear of the car that runs a generator that charges the batteries while you drive the car. This is basically what we should end up with, except ours won't be hideously ugly like an i3. BMW obviously follows this thread closely and is implementing our technology. If only they would imitate the sporty good looks of the Plymouth TC3, then they might have a really good-looking car, instead of the amazing dumpster fire of a car that they are currently selling..

Everybody grab your brooms, it's shenanigans!

Re: "Racing" the Duff Beer Electric Car

Today I played battery box Tetris with the i3 batteries. I am going to stuff a lot of these in to the back of this car. I'd like to get it together in time to drive it to the CMP race. Maybe I can beat my previous record of 168 miles in 16 hours.

http://www.carolinahondas.com/members/roger-albums-pj-picture6744-sparky067.jpg

Everybody grab your brooms, it's shenanigans!

Re: "Racing" the Duff Beer Electric Car

Balancing each of the 152 cells before I hook up the new battery pack. Almost ready to drive:

http://www.carolinahondas.com/members/roger-albums-pj-picture6746-cells34.jpg

Everybody grab your brooms, it's shenanigans!

Re: "Racing" the Duff Beer Electric Car

Three packs in the car, one to go. This is a huge amount of batteries:

http://www.carolinahondas.com/members/roger-albums-pj-picture6750-sparky119.jpg


I've currently got a 12KW generator riding shotgun. Later I will separate the engine and gen head from this setup and mount them under the hood in the bracket that used to hold the battery box. I couldn't get the controller to play nice with the new, higher pack voltage, so I couldn't take it to CMP, but Ricky will reprogram it when we get back from the race and I'll do some range testing with it. My goal is to be able to maintain 50-60 MPH on generator:

http://www.carolinahondas.com/members/roger-albums-pj-picture6751-sparky123.jpg

Everybody grab your brooms, it's shenanigans!

Re: "Racing" the Duff Beer Electric Car

My new rear suspension mounts; with the installation of the fourth battery pack, my old "long-ass-bolt-from-Lowes-with-a-big-stack-of-washers-on-it" mounts were starting to sag, so I made these:

http://www.carolinahondas.com/members/roger-albums-pj-picture6752-mounts1.jpg

Everybody grab your brooms, it's shenanigans!

Re: "Racing" the Duff Beer Electric Car

The rear suspension on it's new mounts and the snappy transparent battery box cover. Admittedly there is no box, but at least I have the cover. The rear feels very solid now. It probably still handles like a lunch tray drift car, but at least it's not all bendy under there any more:

http://www.carolinahondas.com/members/roger-albums-pj-picture6753-sparky131.jpg
http://www.carolinahondas.com/members/roger-albums-pj-picture6754-swparky132.jpg

Everybody grab your brooms, it's shenanigans!

Re: "Racing" the Duff Beer Electric Car

Ricky came by and did some troubleshooting to figure out why it won't start. The pre-charge relay had failed. He ordered some more relays and it should be ready for a road test in a few days.

Everybody grab your brooms, it's shenanigans!

Re: "Racing" the Duff Beer Electric Car

After much mucking about, I have decided that anyone who isn't driving a mechanical injection diesel vehicle is some kind of masochist.

For some reason, the motor controller will no longer control the contactor, which renders the car undrivable. I ordered a new contactor with integrated management and made a manual pre-charge/contactor control board. The startup sequence is now a little more elaborate, but hopefully I should be driving it tomorrow, since I entered it in a car show this weekend. Here's my homemade control board, made out of a tiny little pelican-knockoff case from HF:

http://www.carolinahondas.com/members/roger-albums-pj-picture6755-sparky393.jpg

Everybody grab your brooms, it's shenanigans!

Re: "Racing" the Duff Beer Electric Car

For those playing along at home, that's the original FACTORY volt meter.

Duff Beer Civic (#128) -- 2014 Sebring - Class B (#1 of 7), 2016 Barber - Class B
1981 Jet Electrica 007 [Plymouth Horizon TC3] (#128) -- Mk.1 - Index of Effluency Eco (IOEe) @ 2016 Lemons South Fall, Mk.2 - Judges' Choice @ 2017 'Shine Country Classic, Mk.3 - Index of Effluency @ 2017 Southern Discomfort

Re: "Racing" the Duff Beer Electric Car

Yeah, not sure if anyone's still following this, but I do get asked about it a lot, so I'll keep updating this thread.

The BMWCCA car show (at this point, the car is mostly BMW if you go by $) got canceled due to rain, so I decided to do my distance testing and map my gears out (we've been upshifting too early, which is not good for the motor temps).

I got it ready to go, fueled up the generator, and set out:

http://www.carolinahondas.com/members/roger-albums-pj-picture6756-td1.jpg


The fan nicely draws the heat away from the driver, and if I remember my hearing protection, then it's really not a bad ride, aside from the obvious intrinsic horribleness of its existence:

http://www.carolinahondas.com/members/roger-albums-pj-picture6757-td2.jpg


The cockpit is nice and cozy:

http://www.carolinahondas.com/members/roger-albums-pj-picture6758-td3.jpg


For some reason, the GFCI receptacles on generators don't like to work with high-powered DC power supplies. I usually put regular receptacles in the generators, but I didn't feel like dragging it out of there and fixing it, and I needed a 12v DC source because it was raining and I was running the lights and windshield wipers, so I wrapped an old HP server power supply in duct tape and cut the ground prong off of its power cord, and that worked:

http://www.carolinahondas.com/members/roger-albums-pj-picture6760-td5.jpg


After I mapped out the gear ratios (we should never be in 4th), I headed out on the I440 beltline around Raleigh, which runs right by the shop. Each lap is about 26 miles. The speed limit is 60, so I mostly kept it between 60 and 65, although on one downhill section I did hit 74. For the first lap, I just ran it on batteries, and they barely registered a drop after 26 miles. I stopped at the shop and fired up the generator and started the charger, but it charged so quickly that it had charged the pack and shut down before I got it back on the highway (there's a really long light). Lots of people stared at it, probably because it looks so badass and I look so damn sexy driving it:

http://www.carolinahondas.com/members/roger-albums-pj-picture6759-td4.jpg


During lap 2, it started raining really hard and the vacuum from the open door pulled the water in to the car, soaking the charger and DC PS:

http://www.carolinahondas.com/members/roger-albums-pj-picture6761-td6.jpg


I really should have expected that; it's not the first time that I've looked right at the Bernoulli Effect as it runs up and kicks me in the Jimmy. I parked it and put a fan on the electronics to dry them out, and I built a shield to keep it from happening again:

http://www.carolinahondas.com/members/roger-albums-pj-picture6762-td7.jpg


I'll try this again later, but at the end of the day, I turned 66 miles, most of them at 60+ (the worst kind of miles for battery life), and the battery only dropped from 154v to 149v. The pack has an operating range of 156v to 136v, and should drop relatively linearly throughout that range, so this thing should easily go well over 100 miles on battery. Under throttle I was using a little over 100A on uphill sections and a little under 100A on downhill sections, so while my 9KW generator will not keep up with the battery drain at continuous cruising over 60 MPH, it should extend my range to well over 200 miles, maybe even 300, after which it will require several hours to recharge. With some off-throttle time, a few stops (driver changes), some of our slow-car hyper-miling/racing, and a big heaping helping of divine intervention (I can see no way in which Ahura Mazda could not be on our side), we may be able to get through a day of racing with it.

http://www.carolinahondas.com/members/roger-albums-pj-picture6763-mazda.jpg

Everybody grab your brooms, it's shenanigans!

Re: "Racing" the Duff Beer Electric Car

The generator has a 12v output. Hell, it's right there at your right elbow. (see the starter battery?)

And I'll say it again... those HP power supplies can take DC inputs (250v DC, in fact) Normal pre-charge procedures apply!

I would hope they conformal coated everything. Those things are designed to be mounted in EVs.

Duff Beer Civic (#128) -- 2014 Sebring - Class B (#1 of 7), 2016 Barber - Class B
1981 Jet Electrica 007 [Plymouth Horizon TC3] (#128) -- Mk.1 - Index of Effluency Eco (IOEe) @ 2016 Lemons South Fall, Mk.2 - Judges' Choice @ 2017 'Shine Country Classic, Mk.3 - Index of Effluency @ 2017 Southern Discomfort

Re: "Racing" the Duff Beer Electric Car

Yeah, not sure if anyone's still following this, but I do get asked about it a lot, so I'll keep updating this thread.

Definitely still following this and loving the updates. Keep up the awesome work, maybe one day our team will join you when the cost of running an EV in Lemons becomes more realistic.

Captain, For Parts Only (Team FPO)
#111 VW Golf - Currently Orange with tiger stripes (Calvin and Hobbes theme)

Re: "Racing" the Duff Beer Electric Car

Terminally Confused had a burning desire to race electric, then we watched Duff for a few races.  Not much motivation these days...

Apparently my name is really "Craigers".  Who knew?
We might be yellow, but at least we are slow
I'm a WINNER!

Re: "Racing" the Duff Beer Electric Car

GREAT build

VW built some electric vans in the 70s  and just put the batteries on a pallet  type holder they could pull out with a forklift ,

not sure if you could figure out something like that to cut your pit stop times !

How much juice is left in the batteries you get from the junkyard , there seems to be a going business in rebuilding battery packs on older Toyota Prius cars because they will not hold much of a charge anymore ,

Are the BMW batteries from crashed cars or warranty claims ?

I would love to build an Electric sports car out of parts from a Volt  or Leaf , but I hear the electronic stuff is sealed and has not been made public , so if a few things are missing it will not drive , and no way to hack it to delete things you did not want in a simple car.

But maybe you need to bring a bank of rooftop solar panels for shade in the pits , then you can tell tall tales about how you are running your car off them !

Happy Trails

Re: "Racing" the Duff Beer Electric Car

Range testing is done.

With the new rain blocking plate, the low pressure area is now right behind the box fan, so it sucks air past the exhaust pipe and gathers the hot air from the cowl fan and blows it on the driver. Temperature-wise it's like being in Bahrain, but with all of the humidity of North Carolina. And of course the noise. I don't see how people who daily drive electric cars put up with it.

Eventually the generator will go under the hood, which should make it much nicer in the car.

I made a circuit of the city with the generator running before the piece of the generator handle that I had cut/welded into an exhaust broke and fell off the car. It reminded me of the time Ricky said to me "Roger, that long unsupported poorly welded piece of low-quality tubing that you are using for an exhaust is going to break and fall off the car". I can never tell what he means when he utters these long incomprehensible strings of random words, but he's obviously trying to communicate something to me, so I smile and nod to be polite.

I stopped the generator because it was now filling the car with exhaust, and drove back to the shop on battery power. After a quick trip to Auto Zone I had this, secured to the door latch plate and a flag mount with steel zip ties. This worked much better:

http://www.carolinahondas.com/members/roger-albums-pj-picture6764-td8.jpg


I made it another 1.5 laps around Raleigh before the pack voltage started dropping below 140v under load, so I brought it in with the pack at 137.8v. It was a little lower when I got off the interstate, but driving in town in traffic slowly charges it.

I ended up driving over 150 miles on a not quite fully charged pack with about half of that on generator. I also drove too fast. It's hard to keep it at 60 on the interstate and I frequently found myself going 70+. The highest speed that I hit was 75. For a while I got behind a guy in an old pickup truck that was going 53MPH, and that probably helped, but I really needed a pace car with cruise control.

I'm pretty sure that Ricky (he's better at being consistent than I am) could get 200+ miles on a fully charged pack with the generator on.

Looking at CMP, that's about 90 laps, which would take us about four hours at a leisurely 50MPH pace. It would need to sit for a few hours to charge back up, but we could probably get another 30 laps out of it for the day if we timed it right.  Day 2 would be better because we'd have quiet hour. We probably wouldn't turn laps, but we'd get to charge for over an hour while everyone else is off track, so we wouldn't lose as much. Turn another 130 laps on day 2 and we'd have finished 3rd at the last race, which is way ahead of where we finished last race in our non-electric car. We still have a few batteries left over, so find a few more and put a 5th set in the passenger seat, and we're looking at 140-150 laps/day, which is Class C winning territory (295 won the last race).

Everybody grab your brooms, it's shenanigans!

Re: "Racing" the Duff Beer Electric Car

Post-mortem; I disconnected the batteries and checked them out. As expected, these came from different cars and some discharged faster than others. We wanted 3.6v/cell when discharged, and we got a pretty wide range of 3.5v-3.7v, which is workable. I started the charger and they are evening out as they charge up. Batteries that were .2v apart when I pitted are now .02v apart with the pack 70% charged (150v). I'm guessing that by the time the pack is 95% charged (the max we charge it to), they will be within a few thousandths. I'll keep an eye on them as they charge up, but with them mostly charged, they are looking good.

Everybody grab your brooms, it's shenanigans!

Re: "Racing" the Duff Beer Electric Car

Wouldn't the generator count as a "race engine" once it's under the hood? (not that we don't have a MUCH louder 10KW in the RV)

I believe my exact words were, "you know that's not exhaust pipe, right. I'm just sayin'." I thought it would last hours before it became a rusty swisschesse shell. I'm shocked you didn't grab nylon zipties!

Those are gen1 bmw i3 batteries -- 3 wrecked cars worth. Those are very hard to find.

Duff Beer Civic (#128) -- 2014 Sebring - Class B (#1 of 7), 2016 Barber - Class B
1981 Jet Electrica 007 [Plymouth Horizon TC3] (#128) -- Mk.1 - Index of Effluency Eco (IOEe) @ 2016 Lemons South Fall, Mk.2 - Judges' Choice @ 2017 'Shine Country Classic, Mk.3 - Index of Effluency @ 2017 Southern Discomfort

Re: "Racing" the Duff Beer Electric Car

californiamilleghia wrote:

GREAT build

VW built some electric vans in the 70s  and just put the batteries on a pallet  type holder they could pull out with a forklift ,

not sure if you could figure out something like that to cut your pit stop times !

How much juice is left in the batteries you get from the junkyard , there seems to be a going business in rebuilding battery packs on older Toyota Prius cars because they will not hold much of a charge anymore ,

Are the BMW batteries from crashed cars or warranty claims ?

I would love to build an Electric sports car out of parts from a Volt  or Leaf , but I hear the electronic stuff is sealed and has not been made public , so if a few things are missing it will not drive , and no way to hack it to delete things you did not want in a simple car.

But maybe you need to bring a bank of rooftop solar panels for shade in the pits , then you can tell tall tales about how you are running your car off them !

Happy Trails

We had a quick-swap pallet arrangement at the last race. It was better than swapping individual batteries, but it's still not practical for racing.

Battery condition depends on a lot of things. Volt batteries are going to be the best because of how they are managed, and Leafs are probably the worst. Given that we only want to use them for dozens of cycles, we don't need like-new batteries.

The Leaf BMS has been hacked, but others have not. We use a dedicated aftermarket controller, a Curtis 1239, and no BMS.

I have no idea where the BMW batteries originally came from. We bought them from a guy in a storage unit in Miami.

Everybody grab your brooms, it's shenanigans!

Re: "Racing" the Duff Beer Electric Car

GoFastEnthusiast wrote:

Keep up the awesome work, maybe one day our team will join you when the cost of running an EV in Lemons becomes more realistic.

I've been thinking about that, and we knew that a 1981 Jet Electrica 007 was not a good way to go about this when we bought it. In fact, we bought it because it looked like the worst possible way to go racing and we were tired of going fast and turning a lot of laps. As it turns out, we were more  correct than we imagined. It is a horrible car.

Thinking about it rationally, slightly smashed up modern (post-2010) EVs are going for less than $2K at Co-Part. That's for a whole running car. I've seen moderately banged up Leafs going for under $1K. Then you've got almost all of the pieces already assembled.

That 9kW generator is $799 from Sam's Club. You can probably find a used one cheaper.

Run the generator output to a big-ass bridge rectifier, smooth it with a couple of big caps, all of which is very cheap, and run it through an industrial DC motor controller that you can program for fixed current with a voltage cap of your pack voltage. We do this in a fancy/expensive way with the way that we program the eMotorWerks charger, but it could be done cheaper if someone wanted to do the work.

Mount the generator in the back, connect the motor controller to the traction pack, and start WINNING!

Everybody grab your brooms, it's shenanigans!