# Taking over a half-completed project and need some help



## theguyed (Dec 4, 2010)

I am also finishing a half way don conversion.
The 2008 Chrysler, Town & Country
Be careful of rip off artists out there,

Stay away from http://www.evnetics.com/
I can see that they are almost out of business.
Steve, was a real work of art, we will leave it at that.

Most of the people who were converting cars are now just buying them;

Here are the sad facts about what is going on in the DIY area,

If you wanted to build an AC electric car that went 100 miles you would need 
1) 6k or 7k for a decent doner car.
2) 3k or 4k for a decent AC motor.
3) 2500 for a battery charger.
4) 2k for misc parts.
5) 10k for 100 100ah batteries. that is 320v this is need for ac systems.
Grand total 23k

You can now buy a used leaf for 9k dealers are putting in the 30kw pack and selling them for 12k

This is why so meny companies with ev conversions are going under.

My advice Cash and Carry.

I am doing the van just to see if i can do it, as far as the batteries go i will probably use a wrecked Leaf's.


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## piotrsko (Dec 9, 2007)

Look at the welds on the battery box, general wiring configuration. If they look good, neat and organized, then offer what you think the vehicle is worth to you. 

Used to be $.10 to$.50 to the dollar invested for parts on resale.

It will be a headache and perhaps $2500 for batteries in whatever flavor you choose.

I prefer slavaged Volt packs.


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## IBCrazy (Nov 11, 2015)

piotrsko said:


> Look at the welds on the battery box, general wiring configuration. If they look good, neat and organized, then offer what you think the vehicle is worth to you.
> 
> Used to be $.10 to$.50 to the dollar invested for parts on resale.
> 
> ...


Salvaged Volt packs is a great suggestion. Any links to where I can find these? I was planning on going Lithium because the hills around here will absolutely destroy the mileage if I put a heavy lead-acid pack in it.

-Alex


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## bigmotherwhale (Apr 15, 2011)

Im doing a conversion and i have a small budget, i managed to get a 90kw PM motor, igbt block from a toyota a capacitor and 4.4kw 52 cell li ion pack from a hybrid just over a grand gbp for the lot. if i ever get it together its not gonna go far but you can always add more batteries from the wreckers and whats on offer for second hand hybrid and electric car salvage means we can get stuff designed for the job from the ground up for bargain prices.


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## dcb (Dec 5, 2009)

Call around to your local junkyards and see if they have a nissan leaf or chevy volt or imev or? 

car-part,com is inconsistent in actual electrical parts, but can be handy for identifying potential yards within your range. Some ship also, fwiw.

Stay away from the nimh also. Most hybrids in the yard have nimh.


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## madderscience (Jun 28, 2008)

Lots of people build hot rods and other custom cars that will never be worth what was put into them or which will never be as practical as a much cheaper mass market OEM vehicle by some measure or other.

The hobby is moving in the direction of convert-the-car-you-really-want. Classics, unique vehicles, unique configurations. Yeah it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to try to replicate a leaf on your own if that is what you really want. (nothing wrong with that it is a really good car). There are still only a few body styles of EV available to the general public. IF you want an EV rock crawler, '52 hudson, boat, racer, or pickup truck, you still need to build it. The other major trend,  already being seen with batteries, is the trend towards usiing OEM EV parts in conversions. In the long run, these parts will all be cheaper and probably better than their current, low volume conversion specific equivalents. This is the same thing as with gasser hot rods. Nobody builds totally custom engines, trannys, and suspension just for hot rods typically. Instead you get a crate chevy 350, turbo 400 tranny, and nova front clip, etc. All OEM pieces, maybe with a few bolt on customizations. 

The hobby can still be a great learning experience for both you and others, and will still result in a unique but driveable, practical 'toy' at the end. But, don't expect to get out anywhere what you put in when you sell, especially if you buy new parts. In this case however OP did not buy new, so somebody else took most of that depreciation. 

I spent about $22K on the conversion of my xB (excluding chassis). It is built for 100 mile range and performs similarly to the stock xB. However I'd be lucky to sell it for much more than the chassis cost me. I'd probably make more by parting it out. There just isn't much secondary market in conversions. 

One slight nit on one of the other replies: The 30kwh leaf has just come out. Lots of people are talking about putting those batteries into older leafs, but I know of no mass trend of dealers towards upgrading older leafs for a few thousand over their current market value (yet). Nissan has claimed the batteries are not compatible with older leafs, but lots of us just see that as a challenge. 

I have a similar setup in my xB (UMOC 445 / AC55) Its the older version of the same inverter, but a larger motor. The system has been reliable for me and Solectria stuff is generally fairly reliable for others too if the system is set up right and sized right for the vehicle, but Solectria is out of business so support, such as it is, is through other hobbyists and some failures, like a main controller board failure of the inverter, are fatal. There are a couple people out there who repair and support the equipment at their whim but no guarantees.

Your first order of business is probably to see if the motor and inverter are working. Check out ALL the external wiring first (high voltage and signal/control wiring) and correct anything that is wrong. If unsure of something, do not power it up til you get it figured out. Then you will want to do a test run ideally before buying a bunch of expensive batteries. That will be a bit of a challenge because you will need at least 200V or so of DC at at least 5A to spin up the motor with the wheels off the ground. I was able do to this with a big step up autotransformer and rectifiers coming off of normal 120V household power, but don't try this unless you are pretty familiar with electronics. The other option is find a bunch (20 or so) of small UPS gel batteries that are in good enough shape to provide 5-10A for a few minutes, and string them into a small pack. My bench test of my solectria system is on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuIZmYhrMUM


As for values, The Azure/Solectria components if working are probably worth $1-2K. Look at ebay; similar parts show up often. Any cells that arent' dead, maybe $0.25/0.50/wh if not swollen and proven to have decent capacity remaining. Charger depending on what it is could be worth as much as 50% as its original price if working (if it is something highly adaptable like a manzanita) or less than that if it is something that is less suitable to other configurations. BMS if working, from zero to maybe 1/2 its original OEM value depending on what it is. The remaining EV specific sundry components, look at their equivalents on ebay, maybe 25 cents on the dollar vs. new. The chassis that age is primarly valued based on the condition of body panels and interior stuff and the popularity of the car with VW enthusiasts.




Good luck.


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## IBCrazy (Nov 11, 2015)

dcb said:


> Stay away from the nimh also. Most hybrids in the yard have nimh.


Why stay away from NIMH? I was under the impression that NIMH was the best over all battery technology.

-Alex


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## IBCrazy (Nov 11, 2015)

madderscience said:


> Your first order of business is probably to see if the motor and inverter are working. Check out ALL the external wiring first (high voltage and signal/control wiring) and correct anything that is wrong. If unsure of something, do not power it up til you get it figured out. Then you will want to do a test run ideally before buying a bunch of expensive batteries.
> 
> __________________________
> 
> As for values, The Azure/Solectria components if working are probably worth $1-2K. Look at ebay; similar parts show up often. Any cells that arent' dead, maybe $0.25/0.50/wh if not swollen and proven to have decent capacity remaining. Charger depending on what it is could be worth as much as 50% as its original price if working (if it is something highly adaptable like a manzanita) or less than that if it is something that is less suitable to other configurations. BMS if working, from zero to maybe 1/2 its original OEM value depending on what it is. The remaining EV specific sundry components, look at their equivalents on ebay, maybe 25 cents on the dollar vs. new. The chassis that age is primarly valued based on the condition of body panels and interior stuff and the popularity of the car with VW enthusiasts.


Thank you for the information! I am in the drone aircraft business, so I have a lot of lithium polymer batteries. I can daisy chain a bunch of Lithium drone batteries together to get 120V or so an spin up the motor. These batteries can happily sustain 20 amps for 3-4 minutes so that should be enough for a test.

Also, thank you for the prices on the components. Sounds like the DIY EV market is on the serious decline! I'm thinking that the drive system in the car might not be powerful enough for this car around here. I am assuming AC24LS means 24kW considering it is a rewound 5hp motor. It would be really fun to convert this into a sleeper car, but I'm afraid it would cost a small fortune in power components... if the transmission could even handle it.

-Alex


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## piotrsko (Dec 9, 2007)

Nimh has issues: not a huge power density, somewhat better than FLA, and weird charging issues sometimes resulting in explosive disassembly of the pack. If you need a pack that you can reliably discharge to dead and can live with the weight and charge issues, BY ALL MEANS. My wrecker was willing to get me a pack from a ford if I would remove it and get it out out of his yard.


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## dcb (Dec 5, 2009)

the 100lb nimh pack in my prius has the same energy (~1.2kwh) as 3 leaf modules weighing 25 lbs. hybrid nimh are 4x heavier than ev lithium. I use 3 leaf modules on my recumbent bicycle, which I find amusing (and which is overkill)  

I also have 15 modules I stuck in an old elec-trak tractor, so it weighs 20lb more than my prius pack (and maybe 300lb less than the 6x forklift batteries), and has 6x the energy storage, it rarely needs charging (I do check on it often though).


edit: to maddersciences point, my plans to convert my old civic were pretty well thwarted when I found I could just buy a second hand leaf for less time/money (with all the modern conveniences and more power/reliability/range). I still have a motorcycle project, but it has seen a few setbacks, and it is has a "something to prove" feel to it, though I'm not sure what.


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## madderscience (Jun 28, 2008)

The drone batteries will do it for you, but you will need about 200V worth, not 120V. I think the minimun startup voltage for the DMOC is either 170 or 190V.

Rectifying 120V AC gives you about 170V DC. I was using a step-up transformer that gave me another 20% or so. That's how I got away with it.

As for nimh, they are not the best for EV traction batteries. They have been proven to work well in hybrids where they are kept in a very narrow range of SOC where they can cycle many thousands of times. Lithium chemistries like LiFePO4 are much more suited to pure EV energy storage however. (much more energy dense, good cycle life, 3x higher voltage per cell equals 1/3 as many cells)

I didn't mean to make it sound like the hobby was fading. I think it is changing. Nobody "needs" to build an EV purely for commuting and getting around without burning gas anymore if they have decided that is something they want to do. But that doesn't mean people won't /want/ to build a custom EV. We may be in a trough right now but I suspect the hobby will see a renaissance as more used / surpus EV components hit the wrecking yards and people figure out how to interface with the inverters and other components.


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## Moltenmetal (Mar 20, 2014)

The hobby isn't dead- just changing. On one hand, it has found a couple sources of reliable and comparatively inexpensive cells to power it! Many who were deterred by the cost of a prismatic LFP pack will find Volt and Leaf cells make their projects make sense now. It may be that the used EV motors and inverters will become useful too, and I hope so! But on the other hand, the hobby has lost the people who merely wanted an electric car and didn't want the bother or experience of building one themselves. That group is gone for good, as they can buy a used Leaf for cheap in the U.S.


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