Tag Archives: Carmel Duryea Morris

Mitsubishi MiEV Takes Charge

That Massive Dynamic of EV makers, Mitsubishi, are aggressively promoting their MiEV electric vehicles, with sales in Australia expected to climb steadily, which in turn will eventually reduce the price of the vehicle considerably. After nine months or so of sales gestation in Australia, so far no bugs, no battery issues and no unhappy buyers which is a good thing – so thus born is a regular commercial EV – perhaps one day an electric car for everyone.

Size issues may arise for the regular Falcon or Commode meat-head who may be considering an electric car, but don’t worry big boys, larger vehicles are planned. The MiEV never intended to place itself as the primary car in a typical electric, ahem, nuclear family, more so for complementary city driving. Things will change as the technology becomes more commonplace and charge facilities like ChargePoint become more widespread. And as I have said in the past, a larger car can be converted using polymer batteries having a greater energy density for roughly half the weight of my phosphates (with ranges up to 300 miles between charges) – that’s if Mitsubishi head that way, battery-wise.

Meanwhile, check out the Aussie promotion… I wonder who’d win in a race between a MiEV and my Electric Starion? 😀

And who said I was a hoon? With all the cops and cameras in my area, I have to drive sssslowww…

Farewell to a Legend

It is a sad day when one has to let go of a beloved Starion. Regrettably, due to financial commitments and just ‘getting on with life,’ I have sold my ICE Starion GSRIII. This was a beautiful car to drive that I had once considered converting to electric. Being an automatic, I was advised against the conversion due to excessive power loss through the hydraulic system. But there’s a plus side and a negative side to automatic or manual in an electric vehicle conversion and I’ll talk about this in a future post.

Some think it is silly to get emotional about a car (and admittedly I thought so too until converted to Staz passion by my beloved late husband and another special person whom I have mentioned on this site). A car is in essence an extension of the driver and the provenance that goes with it can be hurting as much as it is harmonious. Symbiosis or whatever you call it, it did feel great to drive the GRSIII knowing all the hard work and passion that went into restoring it. But nowadays I have been too emotional from time to time to the point of becoming somewhat emotionally unhealthy. I wrestled with myself over the need for spare parts in the future (panels, trim, etc.) but I have enough Starion spares for now and too many mechanical ones I don’t need any more since I converted the other one to electric.

At least the new owners love it and know their cars and I am glad to spread the Starion word with now another owner out there. They also realize the longevity potential of going electric when parts become hard to source. In a world of waste this is a good thing, perhaps saving a well-preserved car body from the hulking rusted relics stashed ready for the local crusher.

Live on, Starion…
http://hornsby-advocate.whereilive.com.au/photos/gallery/carmel-duryeas-electric-starion/

Swapped the Instrument Cluster

I know many of you liked the Nut Rider 80s retro electronic instrument cluster. All those LEDs looked cool and would have gone nicely with my retro 80s ham gear. But there was simply no decent geography to put in a decent visible-easy battery gauge. Having run out of money and deciding not to get the Curtis digital gauge (also for reasons of accuracy with the LiIons) I cheaped out and bought a cheap voltmeter at a hamfest trash and treasure. Not quite the same thing but at least I can see the voltage at a glance and analog meters are much better on the eye than a LED bar graph that flickers (I know, one can adjust the refresh timing).

Thing is, and what I like about the Starion analog instrument cluster, is that it’s symmetrical and easy to read. What’s more, the old turbo gauge diameter is nearly the same as the voltmeter I got. I built this into the instrument cluster during the holiday break. I’ll consider LED illumination when time permits but not fussed about it for now. I’ve got a shunt for a smaller ammeter to go somewhere, haven’t decided where yet. Also got some neat face plate replacements.

Re-volting? I like it.

As the car is now registered and on the road, I must now pay attention to interior trim which is pretty shoddy in places. And some folks who helped me on the car didn’t consider the finish and some panels were damaged. Lucky me I have spares!

Fun Stuff

Here’s a neat concept in reducing gas consumption: Boat Tail on Car

Lots of rear-view restriction blind spots of course – but could be a clear plastic, ha hah.

And still in holiday mode despite lots of work to dive into, a digression out of pure entertainment’s sake: http://www.docstoc.com/docs/14294813/Avatar-Scriptment-by–James-Cameron

And yes, let’s hope 2010 gets off to a flying start: http://yuneec.co.uk/

Tinkering, always tinkering.

A Charge is in the Air

Reports have been coming in of a new type of air-charged battery which could provide up to ten times the energy storage of a conventional lithium cobalt battery. Called the STAIR (‘St Andrews Air,’ where it was developed at Scotland’s University of St Andrews), it provides improved capacity via a porous carbon exchange cell lattice which they say is a chemical-free lightweight battery technology ideal for electric vehicles.

Oxygen exchange battery

It’s early days yet, but developers aim to get a ten-fold increase in storage capacity. A reagent in the battery draws oxygen from the air during the discharging phase and the carbon lattice interacts with the air to achieve an efficient charge/discharge cycle with little degradation over time, unlike what one would typically get in your regular chemical exchange systems.

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My Breaker Broke :-(

My Airpax breaker, the main breaker switch, now has a busted switch-arm (I’ll save you the painful images). Just a few test throws under tension, the supposedly strong Bakelite switch arm shattered. The Airpax breaker is expensive, and we’ll have to see if it’s still under warranty as I paid for this some time ago. Considering the breaker is there for safety, it’s a pretty serious failure.

I suspect the cable linked to it and the pivot bend may not have been aligned on quite the same axis and hence some side-ways pulling met with plastic stress thus causing the break. Anyway, another delay. One would assume that such a switch should be strong enough to handle a quick throw.

Blinkin' good

BMS LEDs Now A’flashin’

When I first received the BMS modules, I noticed that Ross Blade hadn’t included charge status LEDs. I bought a bunch and soldered some on but my error at the time was to solder them on the wrong way around, i.e. instead of shutting off when the battery reached peak-defined charge, they stayed on while discharging. The polarity on the modules was not indicated; I had guessed the correct positive end, though Nathan was convinced otherwise at the time (men are always right, right?) so I soldered them the other way.

Fine? Well no, but in a sense, yes…
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Brakes: Positioning the Vacuum Pump

This has been sitting around in the garage for some time now begging to be installed. When we rushed to prepare for the EV demo, the brakes weren’t finished – they were hard-pressed to slow down one could say. As most cars have vacuum pumps for power-assisted breaking, it’s a must-have for my car too, especially with the added battery weight (and I’ll get bigger brakes as well while I’m at it, and new tires with good grip for those much torqued-about moments).

This 12v electric pump is a sturdy example from Canada Electric Vehicles – http://www.canev.com – and has fat rubber mounting feet so vibrations won’t be felt when it engages; and it’s pretty quiet too.

Vacuum pump mounting location.

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Battery Management and the Not-So Fat Controller

It’s finally arrived after a long, long wait for this thing in which the supplier admitted in a text message to me that he accidentally ‘blew it up’ when trialling it in his Mazda sports car (when I should have had it in my hot little hands by then). Oops, but that’s okay – the best of us R&Ding have issues with stuff when trying new frontiers of technology and the BMS controller is a good example, and I’d rather wait for a complicated piece of equipment to be well-tested, calibrated and QC passed before arriving at my doorstep.

Battery Management System (BMS) control box.

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Electric Starion at the Sydney EV Show, October 19

The show kind of crept up on us fast. Although not fully completed, we still managed to make my Starion EV drivable for Sydney’s annual electric car show, held by the Australian Electric Vehicle Association. The show turned out to be a great success in itself…

Carmel and Nathan discuss EV technology.

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[Video] Battery Management & Rack Construction

It’s taken a bit of preparation time, which is essential rather than diving in to find something we’ve done is not quite right – both Nathan and I have been guilty in the past of making stuff only to discover a better way of doing it….

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Thundersky Battery Management Has Arrived (Well, Almost)

What I mean is I’m still waiting for the master controller unit! The waiting-for-parts thing has been a big thorn in our sides. I sometimes wonder if this may be because our interstate supplier might like to corner the local market and serve his customers there first with their EV conversions. Ah, but perhaps I’m just being paranoid :-O .