It Lives!

After  a few busy days, the motor is finally rotating under battery power with the drive shaft (tail shaft) disconnected! Quite a milestone. It is running on variable speed open loop at the moment.

For some reason the motor wont reverse, it just pulses at about 100RPM.

Forward works perfectly.

I will add the speed pickup tomorrow. Hopefully that will sort it out!

When testing, ensure GOOD help is at hand.

Thankfully none of the safety measures were required :)

The team. Tim for his safety checks, Noel for a helping hand these last few days, my wife and of course myself in the grey shirt.

Engine Mount and Driveshaft installed.

This is the view looking up from under the vehicle.
The aluminium block holds the inductive pick-up. (Thanks Geoff)
The drive flange is the grey part.
The Universal and sliding spline are bolted to the drive flange.

I spent ages looking for 10mm x 1mm pitch bolts. I should have gone to Toyota first. They were just a couple of dollars each!



This is the rear mount that attaches to where the gearbox used to attach.

The Driveshaft

Here is the assembled driveshaft.

The shaft is a 2 piece unit. The forward section (closest to camera) has been extended and a sliding yoke fitted.

The near end attaches by 4 bolts to the drive flange on the motor.

Motor installed

The motor is installed on the mounting plate.

<<19072008.jpg>>

Drive Flange and speed sensor

Thanks to Geoff O'Toole for your fantastic machine work.

Here is a photo of the drive flange assembled with the inductive pickup (AE1-AP-4A) from AutomationDirect.com.au.

The speed sensor is used to provide feedback to the controller for closed loop operation.

<<18072008(007).jpg>>

The Drive Flange has been machined, drilled and tapped to accept a Hilux universal joint.

Update - Batteries - Tester - Diff - Steering - VFD - Tray

It has been a few weeks since my last post so an update is in order. photos to follow.

1. I received the Greensaver batteries (20ah and 27ah - 2 hr rate). The port chargers were unbelievable! These would have to be the 2 most expensive batteries in Australia! Lesson learned about sea-freighting goods

2. I have built a micro controller based charger / discharger. It will measureand log to a PC the following aprameters during discharge and charge Volts, Amps, Watts, Ah, Wh, temperature and the all important Peukert factor. It uses 4 x 1 ohm resistors. The resistors can be wired differently to vary the test current. I am waiting an LCD from Futurelec and a charger from ebay's ecrazyman.

3. I have bought a diff from pick'n'payless . It is a 5.125 ratio from a Hiace van. All going well I will install it this weekend. This gives a theoretical top speed of 94km/hr at 4000RPM

4. I also bought a manual steering box from pick'n'payless for installing this weekend.

5. Better VFD. I bought a better Danfoss 5042 VFD off ebay. So, if anyone wants a Danfoss 6042VFD in an IP54 case I have one looking for a home. I have removed all the AC components from the cabinet to minimise losses and will feed it DC directly to the soft charge circuit.

6. The ute has a tray back which was way too wide for the body. To tidy up the looks I have narrowed the tray to be the same as the body (100mm off each side) and shortened the back. If I need sides I can get them from the manufacturer which is encouraging.

At the moment the carport looks like a car wreckers yard, but things should start coming together in the next few weeks. I am still waiting to borrow an engine hoist from my neighbours.