216: Friday 25th November 2011

Several things to report from the last couple of weeks; I have now secured a swap deal with the battery recyclers for 23 lead acid batteries just like the ones I have already. This is especially good as they will swap directly and no modifications required except to put my charger back to work with 10 batteries again. I have been assured that these ones have been tested using a load and they are all holding 12v. The previous set were discharged down to zero volts and I had to recover them. I have some funding that I could have used to get Lithium batteries, but I could only get 100Ah. Now although this would give me more range than I have had so far, it would not be my goal. Since I now have a stock of 13 spare batteries coming as well as the 10 on the car, I can keep sparkie going for a long time with a limited range. I am hoping for about 20 miles or more this time. This takes care of most of my journeys. For me to say my car is in a finished state with respect to batteries, I would need to get 200Ah Lithium, that should give me a range of around 100 miles and for that I need to save some more money. It will come in time and sparkie will be complete. I have also got my wife to agree to let me get her another Jeep Cherokee and convert it to electric. We had one and she loved it, but it was just too expensive to run at 13 miles per gallon on a good day. The objective for me is to buy and convert for under £1000. I have some batteries I can use now and the car could take the weight of 20 batteries when I get some Lithium for sparkie. I am looking at the revolt 1000A controller and a salvaged motor from a Fork Lift truck. I am not sure about the charger yet. I believe the revolt will set me back about £500 and this is less than half what I paid for my Zapi controller and meters out more current too. I like the idea of open source code for the controller, so I can tie in a battery monitoring and display system. I also got my "electric" badges that I ordered from cloud electric in USA via Tim, cheers Tim! See photo below. I got 2 because I thought I would damage one removing it before I sent it off for a paint job, however I have decided to stick it on the plastic reflector between the rear lights, so it can just stay on. So I shall have a spare if anybody is interested for a modest price. I am supposed to be getting some made up by rapid prototyping at work in the original Ford Probe writing style, but I have not heard anything yet. Tomorrow I shall unload all the batteries to the front of the garage so they are ready for collection and I have space to receive the next lot. On Monday I shall call the recyclers to arrange the drop off and swap back and hopefully by next weekend I shall be up and running again.