# Supra conversion project!



## electricmini (Oct 21, 2008)

Hi everyone,

I can't believe I've been into EVs for years, but have only just found this forum! Loads of good discussions & info...

Anyway, a bit of introduction is in order:

I'm Richard Bebbington, I'm an electronics/mechanical design engineer working for a design house here the UK and am in the middle of converting my old Toyota Supra Turbo to electric power!

The engine's already out, a Zilla Z2K is on order from CafeElectric (got my order in just in time!) and a big bad Netgain Warp11 motor is sitting in my garage...

There are several reasons I'm doing the Supra (besides the fact that there's one sitting on my driveway)



It's a strong, comfortable car, great to drive
The electronic systems don't talk to each other with CANbus or anything like that, so it'll be easier to make them play ball with the new electric powertrain
There's tons of room in the engine bay for stuff!

Ok, some more details:

I've already mocked up the Warp11, and it just fits in, in fact the Supra looks like it could have been designed to take it. I should be able to get 14, maybe 15 Exide Maxxima's / Optimas in the engine bay (maybe more if I lose the aircon stuff), and probably 9 batteries in the trunk, without losing the rear seats.

The adaptor plate is turning out to be pretty easy, the bellhousing is almost circular where it bolts to the engine block. A simple 1/2inch plate and a Taperlock coupling will be about it.

What is unusual is I'm using an automatic gearbox - and there's a good reason behind my madness:



First, the Supra box is the best auto I've ever driven - really smooth but also tough as nails.
It's electronically controlled, and the torque converter can be locked solid electronically as well, so you only have the hydraulic pump losses.
Lastly, I have an aftermarket shifting computer, so I'll be able to tweak the shift tables to make better use of the electric motor's torque whilst keeping the revs up and the amps down.

Anyway, that's a brief summary of where I'm at right now - currently waiting to finish the adaptor plate, then I can start playing with the auto gearbox and get other stuff like battery boxes and the high-current cabling.

There are some photos up on evalbum.com, and I'm just starting to cobble together a website for the project but I'm in the middle of changing ISPs, so let's just say that's a bit low down on the priority list...

Richard

P.S. Some of you might remember me from the EVDL, and yes, I did have an electric Mini. I've since taken the electric stuff out of the Mini and sold it on, so now the Supra is gonna be my electric fix!

I'm open to suggestions about lithium/lead hybrid packs, but cash (or lack of it) might dictate lead for now...


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## ddmcse (Oct 9, 2008)

Outstanding ! Richard great to see you on the forum . I'm new here myself but let me be the first to Welcome you to this forum .
As you know I'm a huge Supra fan myself ,mind if I follow along as you convert your Supra ?
My 1st supra was a maroon one inside and out . had the Targa top and leather seats .. true love
1986.5


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## brent.massey (Jul 23, 2008)

Thats a sharp looking supra Richard. Its gonna make for a sweet conversion. Sounds like you're busy working, but take some pics man! We want to follow your progress!


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## electricmini (Oct 21, 2008)

ddmcse said:


> Outstanding ! Richard great to see you on the forum . I'm new here myself but let me be the first to Welcome you to this forum .
> As you know I'm a huge Supra fan myself ,mind if I follow along as you convert your Supra ?
> My 1st supra was a maroon one inside and out . had the Targa top and leather seats .. true love
> 1986.5


 Thanks for the welcome, no probs about following how it goes - that's sort of why I posted about it! ;-) Nice.... was it one of the digi-dash ones?


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## electricmini (Oct 21, 2008)

brent.massey said:


> Thats a sharp looking supra Richard. Its gonna make for a sweet conversion. Sounds like you're busy working, but take some pics man! We want to follow your progress!


 Ok, ok, I hear you  I have got quite a few pics already, just haven't gotten around to building a decent website for it yet (don't worry, that's coming!)
Anyone know of a decent open-source WYSIWYG html editor that'll do frames?
Years back I used dreamweaver for the Mini pickup's website, but that PC died and the old license probably won't work on my nice shiny Vista PC (ugh) Richard


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## electricmini (Oct 21, 2008)

I've added a couple more pages to the website, more will come soon!

Finally got Taperlock bushes that fit the Warp11 shafts
( UK ones have different width keyways from the US ones )

Richard


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## TheSGC (Nov 15, 2007)

How is your transmission functioning with the engine gone? I am in the middle of my Civic EV and the transmission computer is being a real pain. I have to hook up the old Throttle Position Sensor tomorrow and see if it will even let me get out of Park, not to mention in gear. I can override the Park setting, but the PCM will not engage into any gear (which may be because the TPS was missing)

What aftermarket PCM are you using?


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## waldoz (Oct 1, 2008)

electricmini said:


> Finally got Taperlock bushes that fit the Warp11 shafts
> ( UK ones have different width keyways from the US ones )
> 
> Richard


 Nice room you got in front for the battries, Is the motor under batterie rack? How many bat you plan on running?
Chris


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## electricmini (Oct 21, 2008)

waldoz said:


> Nice room you got in front for the battries, Is the motor under batterie rack? How many bat you plan on running?
> Chris


Yep, the motor is underneath the battery tray. I'm planning on 24 maybe 26 batteries if I can squeeze the extra 2 in (2 parallel strings of 13, so system voltage is 156V)


As far as the tranny's concerned, I don't know yet!
That's partly why I've bought a SupraStick v4 tranny computer from Latent Solutions - it will happily accept a normal throttle pot input, wheras the Toyota engine ECU turns the voltage from the pot into a 3-bit binary code and feeds that to the tranny computer.

I don't think it'll be a major problem - what's more annoying is the tranny needs a physical cable connection to the throttle, to work the line pressure control. So I can't use the nice HEPI pedal that you can get for the Zilla - there's nowhere to attach a cable to it!

I guess I should be using the tranny from a MkIV Supra Twin-turbo, that has electronic line pressure control..... maybe a future upgrade!

Richard


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## electricmini (Oct 21, 2008)

A little bit of progress on the Supra:

My friend in work finished machining out the centre of my adaptor plate -
- it now has a nice 4 inch hole, which drops neatly over the centring spigot on the face of the Warp11. He also drilled the 8 bolt holes so I can bolt it up tight to the motor, when I find the correct size bolts here in the UK! (not really a problem, I just don't like having to buy a box of 100 and only use 8.... oh well I guess that's what Ebay is for...)

I've also got a pair of 400A 160Vdc Heinemann breakers coming (Ebay again!), should be just right for the two parallel battery strings.

Lastly, I've got the first generation of the main motor mounts designed up, I'm thinking 3/16 inch steel wrapping around the motor (kind of a clam-shell mount), but with a twist - I'm gonna bolt it hard to the motor case using the two 1/2 UNC lifting eye bolt holes. No way is this motor gonna twist around inside the mount - even when it has to react the full gearbox output torque.... (gulp!)

Pics going up on the website soon - if I ever get around to editing the code & uploading it (yes, it's hand-coded at the moment, quicker than trying to learn a new WYSIWYG html package that can also do frames)

Richard (electricmini)


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## waldoz (Oct 1, 2008)

So I was wondering, why you went with single motor rather than two? 
Chris


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## martymcfly (Sep 10, 2008)

I had a 88 Supra. It was one of the best cars that I have ever owned. My daughter ran a stop sign and got broadsided by a Durango at about 45 mph. All she got was a cut on her face from the window breaking. It was junk after the fire dept. cut it in half to get her out. That car was heavy. If I remember right, it was about 3800 lbs.


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## electricmini (Oct 21, 2008)

martymcfly said:


> I had a 88 Supra. It was one of the best cars that I have ever owned. My daughter ran a stop sign and got broadsided by a Durango at about 45 mph. All she got was a cut on her face from the window breaking. It was junk after the fire dept. cut it in half to get her out. That car was heavy. If I remember right, it was about 3800 lbs.


That's one reason why I like the Supe - there's quite a bit of stuff between you and trouble (though the flipside is that there's a lot more energy to dissipate if you hit something!)

As for one motor vs two, initially I did have 2 Impulse9 motors, and was going to join them end-to-end. The whole assembly would be really long, and would basically defeat the front crumple-zone, as there would be a big un-crushable motor assembly in the front like a battering-ram...

Also I was worried about the reliability of the shaft-to-shaft coupler, and how to rigidly hold the motor bodies whilst also having the belt drive to the PS pump and aircon. In the end, the single Warp11 just seems a better fit.

Richard (electricmini)


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## electricmini (Oct 21, 2008)

Hi everyone - long time no post! ;-)

I've finally made some significant progress - the motor's connected up to the gearbox

(thanks go to Stephen at D&D Fine Limits, who made me my flexplate for free...
...seeing as we send lots of sheetmetal work their way...)

The motor spins, the autobox seems to work, so today the motor & 'box went into the Supe!

This time I lifted the whole lot in over the front bumper, tilting the gearbox down to let it go into the tunnel.

Big mistake!
My crane isn't long enough, and I got stuck for a while with the 220 lb Warp11 & 150 lbs autobox hanging precariously over the nice & shiny front end of the car.....eeek!

Eventually I figured out a way to rest the gearbox on a trolley jack and wedge big blocks of wood under motor so I could undo and rearrange the lifting chains. 6 hours later, and it's almost in place. 

It might not be fully bolted in yet, but I can shut the hood!

So there, I've done it - converted the Supe before the year is out  (in spite of the lousy summer we had here - rain, rain, rain )

Lots more pics, and maybe some short vids going up on my webpages in the next few days....

Richard (electricmini)


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## electricmini (Oct 21, 2008)

Hi everyone,

It's been a long time since I did an update on my Supra project,
had lots of things going pear-shaped which have held it up...

...like the propshaft. I managed to get the wrong one when I
swapped the manual 'box for the auto). Grrrrr.
...then the replacement unit got jammed in the back of the gearbox
(rusty splines), and I ended up having to take the entire motor
& gearbox out to fix it.

( a tip - if your propshaft won't go in easily, don't hit it with a sledgehammer like I did - you might regret it! 

Another annoying setback - because the car's been sitting for a year in
the same place, the emergency brake had stuck on, so the car wouldn't
move. I ended up taking the E-brake shoes out completely so I could at
least test the car on my driveway. Don't worry, new E-brake shoes are on
order... plus all news pads and rotors)

Anyway, after lots of messing about, I finally have the motor back in with
a set of mounting brackets that I'm happy with. I finally used a big
piece of 8 x 4 inch rectangular aluminium tube to bridge across between
the engine mounts, with a large semicircle cut out of the top for the motor
to rest in. Some big plates welded to a steel strap bolt the motor down
into this cradle - so it's not going anywhere....

A couple of days ago I rigged up a 12V battery, contactor and switch,
and spun the motor up. After topping up the auto box's fluid, it engages
gear and the wheels finally move under electric power!

So the Electric Beast lives!!

Tommorrow it's _*Zilla time*_.... just on 48V for testing


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## rillip3 (Jun 19, 2009)

Sounds like you're down to the home stretch!


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## electricmini (Oct 21, 2008)

Today the *Big Bad Lizard* (a.k.a. Zilla Z2K) finally awoke from his
long slumber...

With 4 batteries to give a small 48V pack, and some new wiring
to connect up the Supra's ignition & start feeds, the Electric Beast
now has a green reptillian heart!

Lovely smooth control with the HEPI accelerator pedal - at first I thought
there was a problem, as the motor made no noise with light pressure...

..then I realised I'd deliberately set the motor's current & voltage limits
really low, and that seems to affect the throttle response. A quick check
of the Zilla's status using the laptop, and yes, it's waiting for throttle input.

Ok, a bit more "gas" (I guess that should now be "electrons")
and the motor spins, the gearbox engages gear and we're off -
- for all of 6 feet, otherwise I'd have hit the trash cans in the driveway 

I really like "ZillaView" as well, does a good job of capturing/displaying the Z2K's DAQ stream. Thanks Claudio!

As you can tell, I'm a happy bunny 

Now I just need to install everything else
( power steering hose + pump wiring, DC-DC converter, rear battery pack,
E-meters, PFC20 charger, yikes  I've got loads still to do )

P.S. Thanks to Otmar for an awesome product, I really hope the Zilla line
gets back into production soon.


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## ddmcse (Oct 9, 2008)

Richard any chance of seeing the mounting solution ? I'm just about to put the Warp and Tranny in my supra. judging form your pictures it's not going to be fun . I'm thinking of approaching the job from under the car . after seeing your post I went right out and checked my E-brake , she still moves . I got me 2 "Hiney man " breakers from that link you pointed me to , why i got 2 ? i don't know . i'm only using 1 string of batteries . i had a June finish time frame but I'm not going to make that .


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## electricmini (Oct 21, 2008)

Hi Dan,

I've put together a little webpage about it...

http://www.supralectrix.com/ElectricSupra_motorpage2.html


I've got lots more photos too, just need to get around to reducing
them a bit (they're 3000 x 2000 pixels!) and putting them up on the www

Richard


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## electricmini (Oct 21, 2008)

Forgot to add:

I don't think you'll be able to do it from underneath, unless
you've got a proper car lift platform and a hydraulic transmission lift.

I did it from above - I had to tilt the back of the gearbox down to feed
it into the transmission tunnel, and also had to rest the back of the gearbox
onto a trolley jack. I have a load leveller, so after getting the end of
the tranny onto the jack, I then wound the load leveller right to the front
so the crane was lifting the front of the motor/gearbox combo.
(not what you're supposed to do, but hey it worked!)

It's easier if you've got a helper, and two trolley jacks. then you can
support the motor's weight whilst you move & reattach the lifting chains

Richard


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

electricmini said:


> .... just need to get around to reducing
> them a bit (they're 3000 x 2000 pixels!) and putting them up on the www
> 
> Richard


a super image tool that does a great job on batch resize, and can generate thumbnails and webpages as well is Irfanview. Available at irfanview.com


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## electricmini (Oct 21, 2008)

Thanks for that tip, I'll check it out!

Richard


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## electricmini (Oct 21, 2008)

It's been a long time since I updated this thread, but hopefully
the Supra's at last ready for the road!

I have the dreaded MOT test tomorrow (the UK's annual roadworthiness inspection).
I've crossed all my fingers & toes that there's nothing I've forgotten to do, and that the rust isn't too bad....

Wish me luck - I really want to drive this thing now, after 2.5 years!


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## electricmini (Oct 21, 2008)

Well, the dreaded rust has bitten me - the Supe failed with excessive corrosion in both the sills (aka rocker panels). As the MOT inspector was doing his checking, gently tapping the body structure using his small official-looking testing hammer, there was a horrid crunchy noise, and lots of bits of something-that-used-to-be-steel-but-is-now-crud fell off the car. Oh dear, that's gonna be expensive....

Damn, now I need to find repair panels for a 20 year old car, and get the MIG welding set out...

Good news is that it passed ok on everything else, so if I can sort the welding out I'll be on the road soon.


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## ddmcse (Oct 9, 2008)

Richard thats a bummer with the rust , i hope you get it resolved asap.
as me I'm living the dream over here driving my supra to work and back twice a day with the top off . I on supra 2.0 now with odyssey batteries agm's . a little worse off in range but she feels great I think I can beat stock in the 1/4 mile. And we shall see in June I'm dragging the sup down to a race called the power of dc http://www.powerofdc.com/ 
I have a paktrakr system and I'm not sure i like it yet. gives me some crazy data sometimes. I'm working on a belt/pulley brake vac system to replace the fish tank pump. I've had her up to 85mph and i can see 600 on the amp meter that is measuring at the pack not the motor. I have the paktrakr amp sensor kit but I'm not using it because of the data mess I put those EMI things on the wires but it's not my focus right now. I am hoping to see a guy that is converting an mkII next week. there is another Supe on evalbum did you catch it ? 
keep me posted 

DD


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## electricmini (Oct 21, 2008)

Hi Dan

Good to hear you're enjoying your electric Supe! What size odyssey batteries have you got? I've got 26-odd second-hand Hawker Genesis AGMs (I think they eventually became the Odyssey series?).
Even though they are much older than the front pack of Exide Maxximas, they seem to be stiffer when fully charged! Shame they are not at nominal capacity any more... but they'll do for now, with the best 11 in the trunk as the 2nd pack.

I finally started on the rust surgery on the driver's side, as I had thought
it has spread into the wheel arch as well. But it's not as bad as it could have been. I scrounged a big piece of sheet steel with a nice folded edge, just perfect for patching the rear half of the outer rocker panels! Since I haven't got any sheet metalworking tools, this piece is a godsend...

Of course this afternoon, it clouded over and we've rain forecast for tonight, so I've had to wrap up the Supe with a tarp.... grrr.
Let's hope the weather is nice to me tomorrow.


Just out of interest, what did you do about the power steering? I've got an electric pump from a mk2 MR2, but it can't keep up with the flow demand if you turn
the wheel quickly at low speed. I'm thinking of going back to the original mechanical pump, and belt-driving it from the tailshaft of the Warp11

Richard


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## garyhgaryh (Feb 25, 2010)

Hey guys, I have a mk2 and a 450hp mk3 supra.
I already know dan! Great guy.

Here's my supra:

http://www.evalbum.com/3806

Originally the mk2 supra was going to be my 700hp dragster that would be daily driven. But marriage life has toned down my hp addiction and I now see green (in more than one way).
Gary


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## ddmcse (Oct 9, 2008)

The batts are the 1500 size 
http://www.evsource.com/tls_odyssey.php

I passed on the pwr steering it only sucks a little when its not rolling and the stock pulley won't help during that time . I was thinking about the mr2 electric pump.

I just swapped my electric brake vacuum with a belt driven vacuum pump I had to change gear ratios because it was spinning like crazy and making a lot of vibration and noise. under 30-35 mph the vacuum is weak but above that and the vac pressure is great . I'm not sure this is the final answer but i do not want pump noise 

I'm still not crazy with the paktrakr 
I don't like how it bounces from SOC displayed to warnings and then it has to change the readings from 3 remotes A,B,C then back to SOC 

If I set on it hard at times it will throw me a "charge battery" warning then go away 

sometimes after a night's charge it will report Batt #6 is damaged and i don't know how to figure out what that's about because on a meter it seems inline with the others 
and I did notice that damned near all of the voltage measurements are off .02

DD


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## ddmcse (Oct 9, 2008)

Gary that supra is sweet , how is the interior ? 
sorry I missed stopping by , there never is as much time as we think.
I know I drove right past you too .
How far is your commute ? do you plan on using the supra for it ?


DD


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## garyhgaryh (Feb 25, 2010)

ddmcse said:


> Gary that supra is sweet , how is the interior ?
> sorry I missed stopping by , there never is as much time as we think.
> I know I drove right past you too .
> How far is your commute ? do you plan on using the supra for it ?
> ...


Hi Dan, the interior _was_ great. I noticed it's starting to go since I've left it ungaraged for over 5 years.

About this weekend, no worries. I was wondering how I was going to make time as well since all I did this weekend was move and do house work.

My communte just went from 12 miles to about 30 miles. I plan on using the supra for commuting.

How was your trip to norcal?
Gary


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## electricmini (Oct 21, 2008)

ddmcse said:


> The batts are the 1500 size
> http://www.evsource.com/tls_odyssey.php
> DD


Ahh, they are slightly bigger capacity than mine.
They should have plenty of amps available!



ddmcse said:


> I passed on the pwr steering it only sucks a little when its not rolling and the stock pulley won't help during that time . I was thinking about the mr2 electric pump.
> 
> I just swapped my electric brake vacuum with a belt driven vacuum pump I had to change gear ratios because it was spinning like crazy and making a lot of vibration and noise. under 30-35 mph the vacuum is weak but above that and the vac pressure is great . I'm not sure this is the final answer but i do not want pump noise
> DD


My Supe has the progressive power-steering system, so at low speeds (sensed via the vehicle speed sensors in the gearbox) it provides maximum assist by adjusting a solenoid valve built into the rack, to give maximum backpressure to the pump. The pump itself would probably work just fine running continuously at 1 or 2k rpm - for higher speeds the extra pumped fluid volume just gets dumped back into the return pipe by the rack's valve system (which is pretty wasteful)
I'm starting to think about the 3phase 4kW servomotor I've got lying around here, using that to run the std. mechanical power steering pump AND idle the Warp11, so the car behaves exactly like a std. auto.
Depends on whether I can find a suitable servo drive which can accept 120Vdc input, and provide 40A peak output....

To be honest, I can't really hear my vac pump, it's very quiet - but it is the expensive MES-DEA unit, not a noisy Gast diaphragm pump.



ddmcse said:


> I'm still not crazy with the paktrakr
> I don't like how it bounces from SOC displayed to warnings and then it has to change the readings from 3 remotes A,B,C then back to SOC
> 
> If I set on it hard at times it will throw me a "charge battery" warning then go away
> ...


Hmm.. sounds like the PakTracker can't deal with the electrical noise that the controller throws out. You could try passing all the battery voltage sensing wires from a "remote" through one of those clip-on ferrite cores.

For battery no.6 , it'd be worth noting your battery voltages off-load (when the car's been sitting for a few hours), and also with a load.
(try switching on all the lights, blower on full, maybe idle the traction motor a bit).
By comparing the difference between no-load V and loaded V, you get an idea of each battery's internal resistance. Since all the batteries had the same load current, you can compare the internal resistances - ideally they should all be about the same, if the batteries are all at the same SOC.
If battery no.6 shows much more drop under load than the rest, it could either be:
1. it's out-of-balance with the rest of the pack, i.e. it's going dead earlier than the rest. Try charging it a bit on its own with a 12V charger
2. it's damaged, and has a higher internal resistance. Not much you can do about this really...

HTH

Richard


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## ddmcse (Oct 9, 2008)

suffered a setback


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## electricmini (Oct 21, 2008)

ddmcse said:


> suffered a setback


Oh heck, I'm sorry to see that. Another controller bites the dust...
That looks pretty well zorched - not much chance of resurrecting it

If you can find a used one, or are prepared to wait for a new one,
the Zilla is coming back (see www.manzanitamicro.com)

Or the Soliton would also be a good match for the Warp11...

Or, (3rd option) you could go for one of the new "Warp-Core" controllers
by Netgain...


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## ddmcse (Oct 9, 2008)

Richard I went with the Soliton 1. there are many plus factors but here are a few .


user programmable via a web page
on board contactor
ethernet port
serious cooling with fins and fans w/liquid option
awesome android app to view data(evdash)
and they are Linux friendly 
I only have 4 miles on it so far and I do not have all my gauges reconnected to see amps. I have to reconnect a section of the paktrakr
I need to wire in a wireless router to be able to use the android tablet








as a dashboard
I put about 1000 miles on the logisystems and it's taking some time to get used to the change in controllers. It's very hard to get used to no jerking. as hard as I would try to make the car not jerk in reverse with the logisystems it just would jerk hard . the forward jerk was easier to deal with . But no jerk is just plain strange at this point.
I need my amp meter set because I know I'm getting a pile more amps than the roughly 600 I got from the logisystems.
I can squeal tires from a dead start in second and it almost breaks loose in third . I swear it seems to get up to 60mph a lot faster than before. 
batt 6 is now (or soon to be) batt 5 on the same paktrakr which will be interesting. 
I pulled out the pump and pulley for vacuum , it was a fun test but not the solution I will get the MES unit 
I'm planning on sneaking another battery into the mix for 170 volts.
DD


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## electricmini (Oct 21, 2008)

ddmcse said:


> Richard I went with the Soliton 1. there are many plus factors but here are a few .
> 
> 
> user programmable via a web page
> ...


Awesome!

Damn this makes me want to drive mine - still haven't finished the rust fixes yet (darned work & crappy weather keep getting in the way)

Good to hear it's back on the road

I bet the jerking when moving off was the Logisystems unit not being able to control the motor current quickly enough when the motor's at low rpm
- precisely when the motor's impedence is at it's lowest
( Lee Hart posted a brilliant description of this problem a few years back on the EVDL, while discussing Curtis controllers having problems with big motors)
This sort of thing could also kill the controller, if it can't regulate the current properly, how can it protect itself?

Anyway, it looks like Otmar has some serious competition now with the Soliton series. It'll be interesting to see if the new Zillas sprout any new features
in the next year or two....

Richard


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## ddmcse (Oct 9, 2008)

I'm going to have to chill out with the burn outs or I'll be looking at another set of tires.










But it is so easy to seriously squeal the heck out of them now .



Next EV club meeting I'm going to be making 

margaritas in the blender











well maybe not a blender but I might need to charge an android device or two if I keep using them as a dash board.
who doesn't have a UPS lying around doing nothing ?


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## ddmcse (Oct 9, 2008)

Richard,
back to the Paktrakr I put those little black things on at the first sign of problems way back I know you mentioned them . 
I am going to put them on each leg of the system now 
I have 4 batts in the back on one remote 
6 batts on the 2nd remote and 3 batts on the third remote.
it delivers some info that I do not believe sometimes ..
is it normal to jump around during driving ? today it seemed to report just one section then all then one and i swear it's giving me worries for no reason . i'm going to add a magnet thing to each leg . 









it's not all bad though 
after this squealer I went down the road to the freeway/highway and did 90 mph I think I can do 100 with more room.​


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## electricmini (Oct 21, 2008)

Well the saga of doom & gloom continues...

After much messing about, and waiting for the crappy weather to give me a break, I finally got the Supra through it's MOT.
It needed a new damper, which cost a fortune, but I didn't fancy messing with coil springs myself...
Anyway, the evening after the MOT, I decided to go for a test drive around the lake (about 1 mile per circuit, it's a small lake .
We got halfway around, then the Supe just died. No traction power, Zilla won't engage the main contactor.

I had to get a friend to tow me home.
I spent the entire weekend disassembling things, to get at the big steel box that holds the Zilla, contactors and DC-DC converter

_Note to self: Don't put the power electronics box under the front battery tray - it makes maintenance a nightmare!_

After a week of fiddling & trying things, I've found the following things:

DC-DC is sickly - it powers up and runs, but every few seconds it tries to briefly SHORT the HV supply! Not good.

I've replaced the 125V coil contactors that were in the pack negative leads with 12V coil units. These are driven by the IGN position of the ignition switch.

The Zilla is not behaving as it should:
It sometimes engages the main contactor (in the positive lead) after the key is turned to START, sometimes not. It often reports that the Battery Voltage Limit is active,
even though the Low Battery setting is now set down to 48V and I have a 132V pack.
It sometimes reports that motor current limit is active, even though the motor doesn't spin at all.
Sometimes it reports voltage drop on the main contactor.
Sometimes it reports invalid HEPI pedal signals
Often it'll drop out the main contactor without setting any error codes.

Since the "incident" I haven't been able to get the motor to spin at all, I've got this horrid sinking feeling that the Zilla has been damaged by whatever took out the DC-DC...

Next task (tomorrow) is to completely bypass the Zilla, and run the motor on 24V using a contactor wired to a switch, so at least I'll be able to move the car off the grass outside the house
and back onto my driveway by the garage. At least then the grass might survive

Then I think I'll have to pull the Zilla & HEPI pedal out, and test it on the bench using an old motor.

Not been a good week


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## ddmcse (Oct 9, 2008)

Richard sorry to hear about your challenges 
every day seems to possibly present a challenge to pioneers.
I had one last night my controller (Soliton 1 ) wigged out and could have left me stranded. luckily ? I had expireinced the same problem before and knew what to do. just like the windows computers at work "reboot" 
actually I did a factory reset. symptoms are .. step on the pedal and she wiggles and tries to jiggle but you aren't moving 

What DC/DC are you using ?or did you use ?
I just lost mine an IOTA55
Did you remove the heater core ? I wondered about that box area behind the glove box . Doesn't this setup blow hot air into the heater core or can this be bypassed on like "recirculate" mode of the a/c settings ?


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## electricmini (Oct 21, 2008)

ddmcse said:


> Richard sorry to hear about your challenges
> every day seems to possibly present a challenge to pioneers.


Yep, tell me about it! ;-)

Luckily today I managed to remove the Zilla & hairball, and set it up on the bench with the old series motor that used to be in the Mini pickup.
It works just fine - so now I'm convinced the problems are due to bad/corroded 12V earths or maybe the Hairball's pre-charge wires...



ddmcse said:


> I had one last night my controller (Soliton 1 ) wigged out and could have left me stranded. luckily ? I had expireinced the same problem before and knew what to do. just like the windows computers at work "reboot"
> actually I did a factory reset. symptoms are .. step on the pedal and she wiggles and tries to jiggle but you aren't moving
> 
> What DC/DC are you using ?or did you use ?
> I just lost mine an IOTA55


It's a Westcor (Vicor) Megapac, with 6 modules producing 5V @ 40A each.
I've got it wired up as two parallel strings of 3 modules, so it could crank out 15V at up to 80A.... with a couple of massive diodes to prevent it draining the 12V battery when the car's parked.
I'm sure the Vicor modules themselves are ok, it's the PFC front-end thats likely to have died (running on 125V dc is right at the bottom of it's range)



ddmcse said:


> Did you remove the heater core ? I wondered about that box area behind the glove box . Doesn't this setup blow hot air into the heater core or can this be bypassed on like "recirculate" mode of the a/c settings ?


Yes, I gave up on removing the heater core - it's still there.
So I used the aircon evaporator's box instead - it now heats the air from the blower with ceramic elements, and blows it into the heater core area.
Without the thermistor that used to be in the engine's thermostat housing, the ventilation system opens the "hot air" flap to full anyway, so I can regulate the heat just by turning the ceramic elements on & off.


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## mizlplix (May 1, 2011)

What a nice conversion! You really did your research well. I realize all those 12 volt batteries fit in well, but with your potential power with the Zilla and the 11" motor, the 6Volt batteries would have given you some nice amperage.

How does the car feel after the conversion? Does it feel weight biased to the front any? When hitting bumps, does the front or rear bounce a couple of extra times over normal?

I am always interested in the after conversion handling aspects.

TYVM, Miz


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## electricmini (Oct 21, 2008)

mizlplix said:


> What a nice conversion! You really did your research well. I realize all those 12 volt batteries fit in well, but with your potential power with the Zilla and the 11" motor, the 6Volt batteries would have given you some nice amperage.


Thanks! It's nice to hear some encouragement...
I just keep imagining what the car could do with a big pack of really stiff lithium cells (drool)... maybe one day..


mizlplix said:


> How does the car feel after the conversion? Does it feel weight biased to the front any? When hitting bumps, does the front or rear bounce a couple of extra times over normal?
> 
> I am always interested in the after conversion handling aspects.
> TYVM, Miz


The front is about 1inch lower than stock, so it's a little heavier. The rear is a similar amount down, so the whole car does feel heavy. To be honest, I haven't given it a decent test run yet, so don't really know how it handles.

I'm currently rebuilding the power box with the Zilla & contactors inside, and I'm seriously tempted to reconfigure the car to have the two packs in series, for a 264V system... should make it fairly lively! I will have to get some 240V ceramic elements, and get the PFC30 charger fixed.

Richard


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## ddmcse (Oct 9, 2008)

Richard here is a wiring diagram that might help out 
http://www.cygnusx1.net/Supra/Library/TEWD/MK3/manual.aspx?S=Main&P=35
I have this shop manual , it has been very helpful with the wiring. But one thing that I am trying to figure out is the Tach wire 
http://www.cygnusx1.net/Supra/Library/TSRM/MK3/manual.aspx?S=D&P=8
it says it comes from the igniter obviously it doesn't as it has to go through the wire harness and hit the ECU . you wouldn't have happened to mess with this wire at all have you ?

from igniter 
http://www.cygnusx1.net/Supra/Library/TSRM/MK3/manual.aspx?S=D&P=6
hey it's worth the ask .
thanks 
DD


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## electricmini (Oct 21, 2008)

ddmcse said:


> Richard here is a wiring diagram that might help out
> http://www.cygnusx1.net/Supra/Library/TEWD/MK3/manual.aspx?S=Main&P=35
> I have this shop manual , it has been very helpful with the wiring. But one thing that I am trying to figure out is the Tach wire
> http://www.cygnusx1.net/Supra/Library/TSRM/MK3/manual.aspx?S=D&P=8
> ...


Hi Dan

I used the TEWD part of the Cygnusx1 website a lot - it has a lot more info on the wiring!
http://www.cygnusx1.net/Supra/Library/TEWD/MK3/manual.aspx?S=Main&P=040

The tach wire is black (actually mine has some small coloured rings printed along it, every 1.5 inches or so)
I just connected it to the Hairball's TACH input, and it works. Not sure what you'd need to do for the Soliton, I'd imagine it's much the same.
Of course, the Supe's tach is set up for a 6-cylinder engine, not 4 cylinder
(luckily the Zilla has an option for a 6-cylinder tach)

Does this help?

Richard


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## ddmcse (Oct 9, 2008)

I know it's black I am hoping to get at it somewhere without removing the dash . it must pass through the harness near the mess behind the glove box 
where did you connect to yours ?


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## electricmini (Oct 21, 2008)

ddmcse said:


> I know it's black I am hoping to get at it somewhere without removing the dash . it must pass through the harness near the mess behind the glove box
> where did you connect to yours ?


I connected into it in the engine bay, near the ABS pump in the corner.
The whole engine bay harness passes through the firewall here, and I decided to strip out all the unused stuff from when the turbo engine was in there.
This also gave me access to the main IGN wire (black & orange) and the starter wire (black & blue). I also have the low-battery (alternator) wire,
check-engine light and there's the thermostatic switch that used to be on the thermostat housing (by grounding this, the heating system will think the engine's warmed up, and will run the blower on all speeds)

Trying to connect to the tach wire inside the cabin would be a nightmare, it's buried pretty deep behind stuff in the dash

Richard


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## ddmcse (Oct 9, 2008)

http://www.cygnusx1.net/Supra/Library/TEWD/MK3/manual.aspx?S=Main&P=41

I think I need to track down connector "H" gray
pin #1 should be the tach

I ripped out the wire harness and main ECU


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## electricmini (Oct 21, 2008)

Well, time for an update...

I finally rebuilt the power box, this time arranging the 2 packs in series, so it's now 264V !! (in theory...)

I put the battery tray and box housing the hairball back in, with completely rewired 12V and chassis ground feeds. There's now a piece of threaded copper bussbar making a chassis ground starpoint for all the hairball's stuff,
and this is liked to the car chassis by a 1 foot piece of 6sq mm cable. The 12V feeds that run the contactors now have a fusebox of their own, relays and are fed 12V by a piece of 6mm cable running right back to the 12V terminal on the battery. There is a relay to switch 12V to the Zilla's IGN input and brake vac pump (so it doesn't make voltage drop in the Zilla's +14V SLI wire)

In spite of all this, I still have had it drop out unexpectedly, with no meaningful error codes (it just drops the contactors, and reports "lost communications with controller". Sometimes it lights the error LED on the hairball, sometimes not)

I know I have a bad (high resistance) battery in the trunk pack, so that pack is bypassed completely for now.

I'm starting to think either:

My Zilla has been damaged somehow, or

I have electrical interference problems - maybe due to the fairly long supply wires for the 12V feed to the Zilla
Looking at the other thread about Zilla trouble, I think I need to shorten my chassis ground connection, and fit some low-impedance capacitors across the 12V supply right by the hairball


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## electricmini (Oct 21, 2008)

Time for a (long overdue!) update...

Well, I've finally got to the bottom of my intermittent faults -
- it turned out that I had a bad battery in both packs, so no matter which one I tried using, it'd collapse under load....

So the old batteries have come out, and 144V worth of 12V 110Ah floodies have gone in. 
I'm not expecting much from these since they're marine/leisure batteries,
but at least the car moves and I can do some testing

So, now on to the next issue.... the auto gearbox!
With the stock Supra tranny computer, I just can't get enough power through
the motor. It just revs up to approx 3k rpm, draws almost no current and the car won't get above 20 mph. 
This is with a Z2K, 144V pack and a Warp11 !
As you can see, that's just ridiculous, as the tranny refuses to change gear under these conditions.

So this weekend I got around to wiring in the SupraStick v4 autobox controller.
What a difference! Now I can feel the gearbox locking the torque converter at much lower speeds,
then the motor rpm drops right down and the Zilla can stuff lots more amps through it....
Now the car's gone twice around the lake, using 15 Ah according to the emeter
(ouch! that's a 5-mile range with cold flooded batteries! I knew the Supe was a big, heavy, inefficient beast, but 5 miles from 100Ah??)

Of course, nothing goes smoothly on this project ;-), so now I'm having trouble
with the serial comms to the SupraStick - it works for a while, then stops
responding to the serial port. I'm starting to suspect the USB-to-serial cable
(a cheap no-name p.o.s. from Maplin), I think I need to try the SupraStick on the bench
with a PC that has a real serial port. Then go and buy a decent USB-to_serial lead, with the FTDI chipset in it.

Oh, and I still have to get my PFC30 fixed - it's really frustrating waiting for my 6 amp variable PSU to charge 110 Ah batteries!

Richard


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## electricmini (Oct 21, 2008)

electricmini said:


> Of course, nothing goes smoothly on this project ;-), so now I'm having trouble
> with the serial comms to the SupraStick - it works for a while, then stops
> responding to the serial port. I'm starting to suspect the USB-to-serial cable
> (a cheap no-name p.o.s. from Maplin), I think I need to try the SupraStick on the bench
> ...


Yep, it was the stupid USB to serial lead - the SupraStick works just fine on
the bench with a real serial port in the PC.
So now I need to nail down the speed sensor's pulses/mph, then it'll work better.

Still very slow when moving off - the Warp11 revs up to 3k rpm and has no power,
until the SupraStick engages the torque converter lock and the rpms drop. 
Then the motor can draw some amps and the car starts to shift.

Conclusion: This beast needs way more voltage than the 144V pack
of crappy floodies. Bummer.
Next stop, high-voltage-land! 288V
(will have to wait until I've got some cash for replacement batteries)


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## Outtasight (Dec 8, 2011)

Hi Richard,

Fascinating reading about your Supra build.

I've had problems with USB to RS232 leads in the past as well. But my problem was comms to a solar charge controller. The RS232 adapter I had for the charge controller needs at least +-9V RS232 signals but some USB to serial adaptors only signal at 0V and +5V, so it didn't work. Worked when I changed the USB adapter for another (better) one.

I'm starting the design of a conversion with a friend of an old Ford Galaxy. We're in West Sussex, so am curious as to what components we can get in the UK.

We're planning on using 54x 200Ah Winston Battery LiFeYPO4 cells and a Soliton Junior controller and a Netgain Warp 11 motor. So something in common with your build 

I've also found a 3kW charger but am stuck on what 12V DC-DC converter to get. Are you happy with your modular one? Where did you get it from?

I've not done anything EV-ish before, but I have been using some 400Ah monster Winston Battery cells in my solar set-up and got that working fine.

Another big question is how much hassle is it to get the conversion past the DVLA? Do you just submit a new V51 with a change of "fuel type" from petrol to electric and a change of "engine capacity"? What happens to the VED rating of the car, as it is now banded by how big the engine is or how much CO2 it makes. The electric motor having no CC capacity and zero CO2 output . 

Sorry for so many questions.


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## steven4601 (Nov 11, 2010)

thats more than 2.5kw/mile. I think a boat does better than that.


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## electricmini (Oct 21, 2008)

Outtasight said:


> Hi Richard,
> 
> Fascinating reading about your Supra build.
> 
> I've had problems with USB to RS232 leads in the past as well. But my problem was comms to a solar charge controller. The RS232 adapter I had for the charge controller needs at least +-9V RS232 signals but some USB to serial adaptors only signal at 0V and +5V, so it didn't work. Worked when I changed the USB adapter for another (better) one.


Yep, I've come across that before (I design embedded microcontroller stuff for my day job). Really annoying, especially when almost none of the modern laptops have real serial port hardware anymore...



Outtasight said:


> I'm starting the design of a conversion with a friend of an old Ford Galaxy. We're in West Sussex, so am curious as to what components we can get in the UK.
> 
> We're planning on using 54x 200Ah Winston Battery LiFeYPO4 cells and a Soliton Junior controller and a Netgain Warp 11 motor. So something in common with your build
> 
> ...


That's a big pack you're planning (making me jealous!)

As I'm finding out, the Warp11 really makes its torque down at low rpms, unless you have enough volts to force high amps even up at 3k rpm.
144V just aint enough (not for the Supra) I reckon I really need to aim for 240+

Unfortunately, the modular converter (Vicor/Westcor Megapac) died when the Supra had its first breakdown. I had a battery go high resistance during the drive, and I guess all the voltage fluctuations upset it. It still powers up, but every couple of seconds it tries to short out the supply... So I think the modules themselves are OK, just the PFC front-end is damaged. I haven't dared to try it with mains input - don't fancy having to rummage around under the stairs to reset the main breaker!
Anyway, I got it from Ebay, there are several up there now, but people seem to have realised what they're actually worth and are asking lots of £££



Outtasight said:


> Another big question is how much hassle is it to get the conversion past the DVLA? Do you just submit a new V51 with a change of "fuel type" from petrol to electric and a change of "engine capacity"? What happens to the VED rating of the car, as it is now banded by how big the engine is or how much CO2 it makes. The electric motor having no CC capacity and zero CO2 output .


I just amended the V5 to change the fuel type to "electricity" and sent it into DVLA with a covering letter that had some photos of before & after. Eventually they decided that it had to be inspected, probably to make sure I wasn't trying to cheat with a hidden petrol engine. I had to take it to my local office, which was less than 1 mile away, which involved hiring a trailer and nearly burning the clutch out in my boss's car trying to tow the 5000 lbs of Supra & trailer .

The guy doing the inspection didn't have a clue - he just looked under the hood and said "Bloody hell, that's a lot of batteries! I guess it really is electric...". Then he just checked the chassis number & filled out a few boxes on a form (he was covering for the normal guy who was off sick).

After all that, they just amended it on the computer and gave me my free tax disc.
Whole process would have been easier if the car still had a current MOT and hadn't been declared SORN, but it took me way too long to get it running for that.

Oh yes, I put the motor's serial number from Netgain in as the new engine serial no on the V5, didn't bother with the engine capacity (it still shows up as a 3litre Supra Turbo on insurance database, even though I confirmed with insurers that they know it is electric)

H.T.H.

Richard


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## Outtasight (Dec 8, 2011)

Thanks, good to know it wasn't too difficult to get a car re-registered with DVLA (apart from having to flatbed it to an inspection centre).

Not so good news on the DC-DC converters. If yours are kaput, what will you get instead? More of the same, or something different?

Although it's big and heavy, the Galaxy does have a big and flat load space in the back with the rear pair of seats removed. So a simple rectangular battery box of up to 110x110cm is easy.

I'm kinda modelling the design on Jack Rickard's Elescalade in that he's got a heavy pickup truck with two Warp 11's in series and two Soliton 1 controllers fed from 57x 400Ah cells. The Galaxy isn't nearly as big or heavy as the Elescalade, so I'm going with half of everything Jack is using. The Galaxy should also be able to take the weight without any suspension mods as it is designed to carry 7 people and we're only putting 400kg of cells in the back. So maybe 5 people worth of weight.

The main worry is whether the Warp 11 will fit in the engine bay. The Galaxy has a transverse 2.3L engine driving the front wheels through a manual transmission. Without taking all the surrounding gubbins off the left hand side of the engine, it looks like we have just over 52cm from the transmission bell to what is probably the wheel arch. I'm guessing the motor adapter plate adds like 2cm to the motor length, so we might have a problem.

Jack pulled some stunt where he had the fan housing pulled off the Warp 11 to make it a few cm shorter (especially as he has two bolted in series on the shaft). I'm hoping we don't have to bodge it in the same way. Or else we'll have to find a shorter motor or "remodel" the wheel arch a bit with a lump hammer .

Hahaha.. I should start my own thread on this build but we're just at the budget / feasibility stage right now.


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## electricmini (Oct 21, 2008)

I took the beast out for a longer run tonight, after playing with the shifting
tables again...

This time I did 4 laps around the lake, and even got above the speed limit
(34 mph according to the solar-powered thingy on the lamppost)

Total power used was 24 Ah from the 144 pack, which is pretty horrible for a distance of just 6 miles! 

Looks like I'll need a 200Ah pack of lithiums to get to work in this monster.... sigh... still, at least the thing works, and I'm getting my EV grin after 3 years of work & hassle!


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## electricmini (Oct 21, 2008)

Outtasight said:


> Not so good news on the DC-DC converters. If yours are kaput, what will you get instead? More of the same, or something different?


At the moment, I've got 6 Meanwell PSUs, connected to give 75A @ 15V
They run happily from DC input, not sure how well they are keeping up with the demands of the MR2 steering pump and everything else on the 12V side though, as the 12V battery always needs a good recharge after a run!

I might have another look at the Vicor PSU, to see if I can fix it.
(I'm also planning on putting the original belt-driven steering pump back in, as the MR2 pump can't cope with rapid steering inputs at slow speeds)



Outtasight said:


> Although it's big and heavy, the Galaxy does have a big and flat load space in the back with the rear pair of seats removed. So a simple rectangular battery box of up to 110x110cm is easy.
> 
> I'm kinda modelling the design on Jack Rickard's Elescalade in that he's got a heavy pickup truck with two Warp 11's in series and two Soliton 1 controllers fed from 57x 400Ah cells. The Galaxy isn't nearly as big or heavy as the Elescalade, so I'm going with half of everything Jack is using. The Galaxy should also be able to take the weight without any suspension mods as it is designed to carry 7 people and we're only putting 400kg of cells in the back. So maybe 5 people worth of weight.


Sounds like it'd have lots of room, just watch the weight!
The Supra's ended up so heavy it's no wonder it gets such horrible wh/mile figures (lithium would help greatly, lead is so damn heavy...)

Richard


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## ddmcse (Oct 9, 2008)

electricmini said:


> at least the thing works, and I'm getting my EV grin after 3 years of work & hassle!


Thats is the best part, my supra is a heavy beast as well and the wh/mile is terrible. but I'm living the dream in the electric machine using zero gasoline. I drive her everyday. I plug in at work all the time. I figure it's about thirty cents to charge when at work . roughly 2 kwh @ .14 per kwh. that sounds nice only problem is, it's only 3 miles to work. I took her for a 10 mile trip a few nights ago and those numbers were better but still real high compared to others on the evalbum. 
I love the Soliton1 and I have an android app that I've created to capture the data on a phone/tablet. Nothing crazy just some numbers, it has helped me fine tune how many amps are enough to be a Supra still and not a golf cart. roughly 425 is my cut off. I was pulling up to 900 which turns out to be a bad thing for my batteries.


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## ddmcse (Oct 9, 2008)

Richard I took my Supra to the DragStrip recently 
here are the results for the 1/4 mile aka 1320 ft
What a blast ! I ran three times and made improvements with each run.
The bar has been set my friend.


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