Electric Cars and Tractors

[matt walker]

That's great news Guy, so glad you were able to fix it yourself. I am having a bit of a tough time figuring out exactly what you did, but it sounds like the ground wire to the relay/solenoid for the contactor is what you replaced. That doesn't surprise me at all that that fixed it. It is almost always something small like that which causes problems. A little corrosion inside the ring terminal or whatever was there will cause enough resistance to keep the solenoid from operating. Great job man! If it was only a ground wire you didn't bypass the fuse box.

Oh, and the reason it works with the key is that it probably is a three wire solenoid, in which the grounds are shared between the actuator circuit and the switched power circuit. So, the one ground being bad left both the solenoid's switching function and the power to the contactor circuit without a ground. Is this car still grounded through the chassis like a regular car?

[pa_friendly_guy]

The aux battery is grounded to the body. I do not think that the 144 volt pack is. The seloniod only has 2 small wires running to it, one hot, one ground. I think I will try turning the car on tommorrow with someone standing by the main connector, you car hear it click on and off. Then as they listen I will pull out the fuzes one at a time to see if the key switch is still protected by a fuze. If the contactors click off when one of the fuzes is pulled I will know that I am still OK. The guy who built the car years ago thought the fuze should work off the positive side. If that is the case I am 100% again. I am amazed that a Dummy like me could figure out how to test different things to see where the problem actually was, and more amazing than actually finding the problem, being able to come up with an easy way to fix it myself. I am pretty proud of myself at this point, lol. As long as the garage doesn't burn down tonight I will be really proud,

[Lollykoko]

Good for you on finding the problem, Guy. My years of mechanical background have shown that it's usually the small subset that fails, causing a major problem. Sometimes getting to the root of the problem is more trouble than it's worth, like replacing an original wire that is fastened to the frame and covered with five layers of other, essential parts of the whole. Being able to jumper over the bad connection in a more direct fashion makes life simpler all the way around. Engineers and mechanics who work by book rate seem to love monkey puzzles; shade tree mechanics, not so much.

[pa_friendly_guy]

I agree Lolly, the fuze box in that car is under the dash, under the steering wheel. I literally had to stand on my head to check each and every fuze. It was not fun, lol. Newer cars have the fuze box where you can get to them much easier. Most all cars used to have them under the dash where mine are located. I guess some engineer finally said, " What are we thinking " and moved them under the hood where you can get to them , lol,

[pa_friendly_guy]

I thought I would post a picture of me riding in a Tesla Roadster, they no long make the 2 seater, they were $109,000 each when they were new. A bit out of my price range, This white Tesla Roadster was the 1st Electric Car to drive across the country coast to coast. We set up a charging station for it through our electric car club.
The new 4 seater Tesla is the Car and Driver's Car of The Year this year. Great electric car.


http://www.threeriverseva.org/images/doug-in-tesla.jpg

[pa_friendly_guy]

The Local news paper came out today and took some pictures of me and my electric car. I am not sure when they will run the story. The paper is the Greensburg Tribune Review, I think they are on line. If they publish the pictures on the net I will try and post the link. If it is not available on the web, well then I guess you will all just have to run out and buy a Paper, This maybe my 15 min of fame.

[matt walker]

Very cool Guy! I'll look forward to the article. Don't forget us when you are a superstar.

[Lollykoko]

Great human interest stuff, Guy. We are hoping to hear more!

[pa_friendly_guy]

Here is a link to an electric car charger that towns, cities or business could buy to encourage people with electric cars to come to them.

http://www.mosebach.com/?p=1285
I found it on my thread about hugelculture, I must have put it there by mistake.

[pa_friendly_guy]

It must be a slow news day today. Maybe its because the Steelers didn't make the play-offs, anyway, the article about electric cars and charging stations was in the Local section of the Sunday Paper today. There were a whole bunch of people at church who told me that they saw my picture in the paper this morning. I hope this link works. Just click on the picture to see the picture of my car. My picture was actually at the top of the 1st page of the local section, above the fold, . That is how you determine what was the most important thing, what do they put ABOVE the fold, lol this is definitely part of my 15 minutes of fame.

http://triblive.com/state/pennsylvania/ ... z2IXECaNcv