November 26, 2007 by Rob.

I bought myself a little heater / defroster from Fry’s last week. It was just $10 and has already proven to be valuable. It’s not very powerful, but it does the trick to defrost the windshield or warm up my hands.

I especially liked that Fry’s sticker described the heater as “for heat w/o engine.” I’m certain that they did not mean it was a heater for cars without engines, but it describes my application perfectly! Fry’s can caulk up one sale due to poor English.

Note: That little heater is pretty minor so I’m considering putting an AC box heater in the car to warm it up on cold mornings. That would make it nice and toasty!

Posted in Daily Use, Parts, Improvements, Pictures | 1 Comment »

September 21, 2007 by Rob.

One thing I’ve noticed about the RAVolt is that there are times when pushing on the accelerator does not produce more power.  Typically this happens on hills when I really want that extra power.   I’m moving along OK, but my ammeter is pulling a low 200 and the voltage is hardly sagging.  Normally, I can put my foot down and get some extra “go.”  It’s common for me to burst over 400 amps going up a hill.

It turns out that my Curtis controller’s current limiter is on the OUTPUT side of the controller while my ammeter is on the INPUT side.  The PWM (pulse width modulation) going on inside the black box does not always translate directly back into readings on my analog gauges.

I knew that the Curtis had a current limit - I’m just surprised how it shows up.

Posted in Daily Use, Parts, EV Tech | No Comments »

July 31, 2007 by Rob.

I have sold my soul to the Dark Wizard, WaldeMart, in exchange for expelling the demon in my auxiliary battery. Under his ever watchful eye (and for $37), I transformed the demonic battery into a non-jinxed battery that is slightly smaller flooded Pb than the original.
Hopefully this will finally cure the Laura EV jinx: I had not driven the RAVolt for a week and the battery was completely shot. Of course, I only discovered that AFTER Laura asked to go for a ride.

Posted in Parts, Improvements, Storyline | No Comments »

July 14, 2007 by Rob.

Alex and I installed the air springs today. They are really just hard balloons that fit inside the rear springs. They don’t provide much extra lift because their max pressures is just 25 lbs. Even so, they did manage to lift the RAVolt a little and correct some of the wheel cant. This may work for a while, but I’ll need new springs eventually.

That’s a little better, but still canted.

Posted in Parts, Pictures, Conversion, Planning | 1 Comment »

July 10, 2007 by Rob.

I got the LED flasher today and installed it.  It still has a nice (but quieter) “click” sound when the blinker is on.

The flasher’s 3 prongs are upside down compared to the RAVolt’s original flasher. Toyota supplied a clip that corrects the orientation for the original flasher and it was easy to remove and reuse. My photo of the clip is blurry, but you can still see the clip between the old (right) and new (left) flashers.

Alex and I also swapped out the remaining running lights to LEDs. They were small drains, but I felt compelled to get them because they are cheap and the shipping was the same anyway

Posted in Parts, Pictures, Conversion | No Comments »

July 9, 2007 by Rob.

Looking at the geometry of the rear suspension tie bars, it looks the the canting is due to the rear load. The picture overlay shows that more lift from the springs should definitely improve the wheel angle.

I’m ordering some RAV4 air springs ($65) to try and address the problem.

Posted in Parts, RAV4, Improvements, Pictures, Conversion, Planning | 1 Comment »

July 5, 2007 by Rob.

The buzzing turn signal is caused because the flasher relay timer uses the resistance from the incandescent bulbs as part of the timing circuit (time = resistance * capacitance). The LEDs have a very different electrical characteristic so the timer does not work correctly. This was a clearly documented probability at the LED vendor’s web site.

The solution is to buy a replacement Flasher. I could not find the part # match: looking at the chart and actual relay I determined that the RAV’s replacement unit is CF13JL-02. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that this is the right $20 part to buy.

This blurry picture was taken blindly. It’s just below the steering column near the clutch peddle. The flasher (now buzzer) is the box on the right.

Posted in Parts, Pictures, Conversion, Planning | 2 Comments »

July 3, 2007 by Rob.

Changing out the incandescent turn signal and tail lights was one of the easiest changes I had to make for the RAVolt. The new bulbs are a drop in replacement for the original bulbs and look the same externally. I had to make sure that I bought the right color match. Red LEDs for the red filter, etc.

Unfortunately, changing the bulbs made my turn signal timing relay (the flasher) angry: it now buzzes like a loud wind-up toy whenever I use the turn signal.

It’s pretty hard to tell the difference between the lights (unless you look at the drain on the battery).

LED light	Incandescent

Posted in Parts, Pictures, Conversion | 1 Comment »

July 2, 2007 by Rob.

I’m unimpressed with my Astrodyne DC-DC converter, but at least it is working now. Thanks to Chris R’s shunts, I was able to determine when the converter is working. It is very sensitive to being drawn down into overload protection by spikes in demand. For example, when the vacuum pump starts up.

My frustrations with the Astrodyne include:

1. cannot handle short surges (like pumps starting up) in demand without overloading
2. “power on” LED on even if unit is overload shutdown but connected to 12 VDC system
3. overload shuts down the unit instead of just current limiting
4. unit requires power off and about 15 minutes of rest before recovering

If the auxiliary battery is not fully charged then the converter seems to always shutdown. This makes sense because just recharging the battery was pulling 10 amps. I installed a switch and relay so that I unload the converter from the cabin when the pump starts up.
Here is the converter in it’s new home. This is not as protected as I would like, but it makes for easy access when I need to tinker with it.

Posted in Parts, Improvements, Pictures, Conversion, Planning | No Comments »

June 29, 2007 by Rob.

My rear batteries are in the cabin and need to be vented while they charge to prevent hydrogen gas (h2) build up. I’ve also heard that the sulfuric acid in the flooded batteries can produce a sulfur smell and venting helps keep it out of the car.

I’d hooked up 2 fans to blow air through the box, but wanted them to only run during the battery charge cycle. To do this, I used the Zivan NG3 charger’s 2 built-in relays. Aux 1 is “on” when the charger is plugged in and Aux 2 is “off” while the charger has finished pumping electrons into the batteries. I had to use both relays to run the fans: the fan power uses the normally closed aux1 circuit (on when plugged) and the normally closed aux2 circuit (so its on when charging). The result is a wiring mess behind the charger.

I also tapped an extra plug from the charging plug to run the 1000 mA, 15VDC charger.

Note: I’m using the normally open part of the Aux1 to interlock the controller. This *should * prevent driving off while plugged in.

Posted in Parts, Pictures, Conversion, Planning | 1 Comment »