July 30, 2008 by Rob.

Wow…quick response from the AustinEV team!  Thanks.

From Brian:

It’s Cupric Sulfate.  It’s formed by the reaction of Sulfuric Acid (in the air, bubbling off from the battery) with the exposed copper of the battery wire lugs. On the plus side… It’s no longer reactive after forming Cupric Sulfate, so it will not hurt anything.  And another positive, is that it’s the copper lugs that are corroding… and they can be replaced
much easier than the lead battery terminals.  

I do not think it’s a big problem.  If you were really concerned, you could re-tin the copper lugs, or put some waterproof paint over the lugs and terminals.  Waterproof paint would make it much more annoying
to change / remove your wiring at a later date though.   :-/

From Mike:

Try coating the exposed surfaces with vaseline.  It will keep the air and
moisture off and greatly reduce corrosion.  There are several brands of
spray on corrosion preventative, but from past experience vaseline works
just as well, cleanup is pretty easy, and it is cheap.

From Roy:

I get that a lot too, it does not effect conductivity for me.
I usually brusk off the powder with a stiff nylon brush and vacume it up.

Posted in Safety, Daily Use, Improvements, Electric Vehicles, AustinEV | No Comments »

July 29, 2008 by Rob.

I was watering the RAVolt’s batteries this weekend (as usual, 1 basterfull per cell) when I noticed that one of the battery terminals is corroded.  The powered is bluish and there is no acid splash around the terminal.  I’m not sure what to do yet, just reporting the problem.  I’ll ask AustinEV for help.

Corroded:

Clean:

Posted in Safety, Batteries, Daily Use, Parts, Pictures, AustinEV | No Comments »

May 24, 2008 by Rob.

It took longer that I’d hoped to stop chasing the wrong problems before I finally found the real cause. After about 3 hours of hunting, I found two problems: one was a design issue and the other was a blown fuse caused by the design issue.

The design issue was the way I’d wired the charger “still plugged in” relay to the key safety interlock (KSI) on the controller. I need both charger relays (see older posts for detail) to turn on the vent fans. I’d been using the same relay to turn on the controller KSI relay. Unfortunately, that sent 12 volts to the relay even when the car was parked. This was effectively BY PASSING my contactor so that traction voltage (144 v) was still present for the controller, volt meter, and the DC-DC converter. That was not supposed to happen so I disabled it and hooked the KSI to the key on. Now the motor could go even if I’m plugged in (oops), but I always coast down my driveway to start so it was not really much of a safety benefit.

The second issue was a blown fuse (it should be clear not white) in the DC-DC converter. At least, that was easy to find and fix

Now the RAVolt and I are happy again.

Posted in Safety, Parts, Improvements, Pictures, Storyline | No Comments »

May 22, 2008 by Rob.

I must have gotten bad eKarma from bragging on the RAVolt today over lunch because now there’s a short somewhere.  Alex noticed that the DC-DC converter was not charging while we were driving today and then I noticed that the volt meter did not drop to zero when the key was off.  Both are bad signs

I popped the main breaker and the volt meter dropped to zero so it’s clear that there is some high-resistance ground fault.  It has to be high resistance because there would be smoke otherwise!

I inspected all the batteries and there are no *obvious* faults from there.  The most likely spot would be on the positive cable for battery #5.  That leaves A LOT of wire to check because the link between #5 & #6 is the long run between the front and back packs.  Then again, cutting the breaker stopped the short.   Hmmmm…..

Maybe it’s time for an AustinEV open garage to get more eyeballs on it.

Posted in Safety, Daily Use, Improvements, Storyline | No Comments »

April 13, 2008 by Rob.

My friend send me an update with a subject of “Good for the environment, bad for society” and I’ve been tracking the debate on making electric cars (& hybrids) noisier for a while.

I’m neutral on this issue: it think is a shame to create noise pollution, but agree that there is a real safety issue to be addressed. By design, my Curtis controller already makes that whine at low throttle, so don’t expect to hear anything more from the RAVolt.

I’m not sure why the hearing EVs poster choose to show off the cool Subaru R1e, but I’m including it too.

Update 4/14: Upon reflection, I question the accuracy of the video showing blind people tripping over a Prius after walking past an SUV.   The issue is not the Prius’ lack of sound, but the immense amount of distracting noise created by the ICE in the other car.  I’m frequently amazed at other cars’ sonic volume when I’m driving the RAVolt.  <dream>In an all EV city t the noise level be at safe levels and the roar of ICEs would not drown out all other sound.</dream>

Posted in Safety, Electric Vehicles | No Comments »

December 19, 2007 by Rob.

I took advantage of the warm weather to spend some quality time with the RAVolt.  Clearly the RAVolt was feeling neglected because we had a bit of a Christine moment.

On the way home from getting my trilunar haircut, the brakes turned to bricks.  That’s normal when the vacuum pump is not working: normal maybe, but definitely unwelcome.  The brakes still “work” as long as there is no one in front of you and you’re going up hill.  I pulled over quickly and discovered a loose wire.  Luckily, I was just cruising the neighborhood.

Lessons learned:

1. Avoid force the wrong age wire into a screw terminal
2. Include routine “pull test” for wire fitting.

Posted in Safety, Daily Use, Storyline | No Comments »

November 26, 2007 by Rob.

I had a scary ride home in the rain, cold, and dark over the weekend.  My auxiliary battery was so weak that my DC-DC charger cut out.  That left me with very dim headlights, minimal wipers, and no defroster.  I jumper cabled in one of the traction batteries and recovered, but it was not very fun to be playing with the cables in the rain.

It turns out that the 10 amp fuse between my auxiliary charger and the auxiliary battery blew out a while back.  When the fuse is blown, the battery vent fans run off the auxiliary battery instead of the charger and eventually drain it during charging.  Unfortunately, I discovered it was the fuse only after replacing the charger.  What a waste of 2 hours on a Sunday!

Posted in Safety, Daily Use, Storyline | No Comments »

October 24, 2007 by Rob.

It’s no surprise that sulfuric acid is nasty, corrosive stuff; however, it’s disappointing that so much of it is spraying out of my batteries and onto the RAVolt’s sensitive skin.  I was not expecting to see this for a while, but I’d rather see it so I can fix it. Visible corrosion on a replaceable non-structural component is about as good as bad news can get.

The solution is to replace the el cheapo (that’s Latin for inexpensive) caps that come with the Trojans with some high grade Water Miser battery caps. These caps have premium organic lotus-scented bath beads that trap the escaping battery acid in a luxurious spa experience convincing them to remain within the confines of their downtown mixed-use condo. That reduces both my watering frequency and the RAVolt’s corrosion risk.

How much to treat my batteries to this lavishness? Just $22.50 per battery or $260 for the whole pack. But who can really put a price on inner peace?

Note: Special thanks to Erik w/ AustinEV for the tip. He’s using these caps and highly recommends them.

Posted in Safety, Daily Use, Improvements, Pictures, AustinEV | No Comments »

September 8, 2007 by Rob.

I finally had a chance to wire a high pedal bypass switch.  This switch overrides the high pedal relay for my positive contactor.  Now I can flip the switch while I’m on a hill and keep power flowing to the controller.  When the switch is off the relay works just like before.  I’m only expecting to use this occasionally.

I realize this is not as safe because the controller will stay energized if the key is turned, but it keep me from rolling back on hills.  It was getting stressful playing games with the parking brake when rushing to get through hilly lights on Bee Cave and on 360.

My next mini-project: installing a real charger for the auxiliary battery instead of the wimpy 15 volt Radio Shack supply I had been using.

Posted in Safety, Improvements | No Comments »

September 4, 2007 by Rob.

Sometimes I get stuck in an ICE rut even when I live in an EV world.   Picture the RAVolt stranded in a parking lot because my auxiliary battery died.  Luckily, I’ve packed jumper cables so I can start the EV with the cables.  Thinking with my ICE hat on, I ask the guy next to me for a jump.  He’s pretty amused to provide a jump to an EV and happily opens up his hood.  I connect up the cables and the RAVolt “starts” like a champ; however, it dies when I disconnect the cables because the auxiliary is too dead to run my vacuum pump.   Oh No!  I’m stranded - better call Laura and get a ride home.

Finally, I realize that I can give myself the friggin’ jump from any of my traction batteries!  20 seconds later I’m ready to drive again.  Before I go, I ask the guy who game me the jump why he didn’t say anything.  He just shrugged and said “yeah, it seemed strange, but I figured you knew what you were doing.”

After thinking on it a while, I realize that I’ve gotten so used to seeing the traction (main) battery pack as a single unit that it’s hard to treat it like a chain of 12 batteries.  Even when I describe it as 5 in the front and 7 in the back, I’d been thinking of it as one part.  What an unexpected lesson in the dangers of pattern thinking!

Posted in Safety, Daily Use, Storyline | 1 Comment »