# And they said it couldn't be done !!!



## tj4fa (May 25, 2008)

Cool!! 

I'm guessing the AC system has better torque across the rpm range as compared to a DC series wound motor and maybe that's why you can use more gears?


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## piotrsko (Dec 9, 2007)

Apparently I should not listen to they anymore? way cool, works for me.


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## frodus (Apr 12, 2008)

its still crap for efficiency.....Torque converters are not known for their ability to conserve energy


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Well, it's not the most efficient of conversions. But it works. I don't think anyone said it couldn't be done. They just say it's not the best choice. Have you calculated your kWh/mile?

By the way, I'd have someone do some spell checking on your website.

Either way, I'm impressed that you were able to turn it into a kit. Have you gotten any interest yet?


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## dragster (Sep 3, 2008)

Hi
Vehicle has no converter, you can't use one with an AC motor and the torque is 280 from 0 to 2000 RPM then it falls off as for the mileage we should get more as the batteries get used more and next we will put in AGM's. The nice part is there is no difference in driving it then when it had a gas engine.


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## JeffPritchard (Jun 10, 2008)

dragster said:


> Vehicle has no converter, you can't use one with an AC motor


I want to learn. What is the reason for this?

thanks,
jp


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## dragster (Sep 3, 2008)

JeffPritchard said:


> I want to learn. What is the reason for this?
> 
> thanks,
> jp


A converter would have to be running to keep pressure to the clutches in the transmission and with an AC drive you can't run the motor to turn over the converter so we had to find a different way to run the transmission


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## JeffPritchard (Jun 10, 2008)

dragster said:


> A converter would have to be running to keep pressure to the clutches in the transmission and with an AC drive you can't run the motor to turn over the converter so we had to find a different way to run the transmission


Hi Dragster. I am a beginner. I was hoping to learn what is unique about an AC system (vs. a DC system) in this regard.

thanks!

jp


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## dragster (Sep 3, 2008)

Hi
AC drive is commercial voltage three phase 336 volts the same voltage as used in Factory's. It is the most efficient and used in all new electric cars also you have regen power when you take your foot off the gas pedal the motor turns in to a generator and puts energy back into the batteries.


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

dragster said:


> ... with an AC drive you can't run the motor to turn over the converter..


Why not????


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## dragster (Sep 3, 2008)

Hi
First off converters are not efficient and should not be used in an electric car. But you need to run the front pump to build up pressure for the clutch packs. To drive an electric vehicle with AC controller you need to turn the key on to power up the controller then you shift the controller switch from neutral to drive. Now you can put your Explorer transmission in drive and go. But if the electric motor is all ready running at 600 RPM for the converter as in a gas vehicle the controller will disable the gas pedal. The reason is for safety the controller looks at the engine to see it at zero RPM's and the pedal is all the way back. Then and only then will it let you start. Look at it this way someone could get in the car put the pedal to the floor then turn the controller on and the motor would go to 8000 RPM I don't need to tell you what that would do to the transmission. So we had to come up with a way to get pressure to the transmission other then the front pump we spent months on this problem but we have Persevered.


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

dragster said:


> Hi
> First off converters are not efficient and should not be used in an electric car.


 A lockup converter would take care of most of the efficiency problems.


> But you need to run the front pump to build up pressure for the clutch packs. To drive an electric vehicle with AC controller you need to turn the key on to power up the controller then you shift the controller switch from neutral to drive. Now you can put your Explorer transmission in drive and go. But if the electric motor is all ready running at 600 RPM for the converter as in a gas vehicle the controller will disable the gas pedal. The reason is for safety the controller looks at the engine to see it at zero RPM's and the pedal is all the way back. Then and only then will it let you start.


 So why can't you just have the "idle" feature turn on after the vehicle is started and when the vehicle is not in park?


> Look at it this way someone could get in the car put the pedal to the floor then turn the controller on and the motor would go to 8000 RPM I don't need to tell you what that would do to the transmission.


 Same thing could happen in an ICE vehicle, but people know enough not to floor it when starting.


> So we had to come up with a way to get pressure to the transmission other then the front pump we spent months on this problem but we have Persevered.


I'm glad you worked something out but I don't think it's accurate to say you can't use the torque converter, especially since some people here are doing just that. Check out the thread on automatic transmissions in EV's.


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## dragster (Sep 3, 2008)

Hi
What I said was you can't use a converter with an AC drive. We know the DC drives have a program for running the motor at about 250 RPM's but we can't do that with the AC drive.


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

I still don't see why. If you can press your throttle pedal to turn the motor at 250rpm, or any rpm, then you should be able to hold it there. If you're running a 0-5Kohm throttle then you can just have a resistor switched in line to give you the resistance you need to hold 250rpm or whatever. If there is a high pedal disable that's causing the problem you can put a switch on that to bypass it. I just don't see what's special about an AC system that prevents motor idling.


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## Batterypoweredtoad (Feb 5, 2008)

There is nothing special about AC that prevents you from having the motor idle. They just didn't see a way to make it work with the controller they are using.


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## david85 (Nov 12, 2007)

I'm more interested in how you get pressure to the clutch packs when the motor is at or near 0RPM. All the auto trannys I've seen have the pump driven directly by the torque converter. *How the heck did you get around this????*

As far as crap for efficiency, I disagree. first of all, modern automatics are not nearly as inefficient as we are generally led to believe, second.....35 miles in a vehicle that big and heavy with lead batteries is nothing to sneeze at.

I'm also trying to figure out who you are and how you got into EVs. I've never heard of this before, but thanks for sharing and welcome to the forum.


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## dragster (Sep 3, 2008)

Hi
To answer JR3P & Batteryprowerd toad. We asked the company the makes the controller to change the software so we could run the motor at 250 RPM's and then would not for safety reasons. This turned out to be good because EV Vehicles work best in city driving and to be at a stop light with an 80 HP motor running at 250 RPM's is not a good thing.

As to Dave's question our company looked at EV's when gas hit $4.00 a gal. We looked at the vehicles that you people were building and soon realized there are not very a lot of standard shift cars made today. But the Ford Explorer was the # one seller from 1995 to 2001 and has a full frame this would give us a place to put battery packs up next to the frame and leave the interior free for passengers and cargo. As for the transmission this proved to be a very difficult problem to over come but we have.


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

dragster said:


> As for the transmission this proved to be a very difficult problem to over come but we have.


And apparently are unwilling to explain how  That's alright, there are a number of people here working on the problem and I'm sure we'll figure it out.


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## Jimdear2 (Oct 12, 2008)

david85 said:


> I'm more interested in how you get pressure to the clutch packs when the motor is at or near 0RPM. All the auto trannys I've seen have the pump driven directly by the torque converter. *How the heck did you get around this????*


david85,

Here is a Summit Racing pre made pump drive adapter that will replace the TC in a powerglide. There are maney more by other performance transmission companies.

Basically its a tube that attaches to the motor at one end and has a pump drive at the other and inside the tube is a plate with the spine for the transmission input shaft.

http://store.summitracing.com/partdetail.asp?part=TCI%2D745000&autoview=sku

EDIT OOPS!!!! I missed what you were really asking. 

I would say thay probably are using an auxillary pump switched on and off with a throttle pedal switch. It a prety simple system. GM used it on one of their early FWD fleet conversions with automatic trans and if you look around you will see it used elsewhere. I beleive I've heard that the part number for that pump is still active in GM parts

From reading this thread I get the impression that these people are proud of their conversion and consider a lot of the things they did propriatiary information. It also looks like these guys may not have done or missed a lot of research on some of the things that are already in the public domain.

Those that might be interested there are two threads that are covering a lot of this stuff. there are some completed and some in progress projects. Mostly DC right now.

See "The Reasons Why Automatics Wont or Why Automatics Will Work in EV's" in the Technical Discussion section

End Edit


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## toddshotrods (Feb 10, 2009)

Jimdear2 said:


> david85,
> 
> ...EDIT OOPS!!!! I missed what you were really asking.
> 
> I would say thay probably are using an auxillary pump switched on and off with a throttle pedal switch. It a prety simple system. GM used it on one of their early FWD fleet conversions with automatic trans and if you look around you will see it used elsewhere. I beleive I've heard that the part number for that pump is still active in GM parts...


There is also a company that makes a setup for flat-towing vehicles with automatics, that I believe is similar to this. I can't find the link right now, but I think it uses an auxillary pump that circulates fluid to keep from burning the transmission up while towing. Saturns can be ordered with a transmission already setup for it.


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