Tuesday, August 31, 2010

UBC E-Beetle Visits Toronto, Spends a Day before Moving on!

The Now Famous University of British Columbia Electric Car Club's Electric 1972 Beetle passed through Toronto, on the way to a first ever Licenced Vehicle Crossing of Canada in an All Electrically Propelled Vehicle, arriving in Toronto on Monday, August 30th, 2010, at 2:30 PM! See Their Story at their blog: www.ubcecc.com/blog

I took some time - and switched shifts on my job so I could connect with them Tuesday Morning, August 31st! (Looks like my Camera Date needs correcting!)

We Met, I took some photos of the Car, Did an Interview - Video Style, with Ricky, and fellow EV Enthusiasts and PHEV drivers showed up and we then went off to get some Breakfast together. While there, one of the local EVer's contacted CBC and shortly thereafter - their news camera operator caught up to us and we watched as the E-Beetle and Ricky Gu made there story more widely known!
For a Larger Copy of the Above Picture - Click Here!

Friday, August 27, 2010

Visiting iMiev in Whitby!

iMiev as on display at Motorcity Mitsubishi.
I had a chance today to see the i-Miev "I-MEEV" in Whitby while it stopped for a chance for followers and fans to check it out!

While it was there, I had a chance to meet others coming to see it, and check out fit, leg-room, passenger leg-room, and get an interview on video! Not ready for posting yet!

It turns out that the Right Hand Drive Cars, only take a short time to get used to, and then it is just settle in and go!

Monday, August 16, 2010

EV Fest - did I Mention I'll Be Exhibiting there?

On October 17th, 2010, I will be having my electricfly on display - exhibiting it with 20 Plus other electric vehicles at EV Fest - www.evfest.ca at Toyota-Lexus On the Park, 1077 Leslie Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada! [Leslie & Eglinton, about a mile West of the Ontario Science Centre!]

Why Not Go Register to Attend or Bring an EV of your own today! Join me there, it will be fun!

So - in my quest to have done something more on the electricfly - I have started to take the measurments I made in the under seat / gas tank area, and enter them by row into a spread sheet! Got 4 rows of 40 number entered last night, maybe I can get some more done tonight! [20 more rows of 40 to go!]

My plan for this is to make a model of the under seat space and use it to consider, evaluate, and prove the volume available for a new battery Pack, so I don't have to guess any more!

Robert

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Instrument Pod - Finally Free!

After Finishing with the Manual 3D Scanning of the Gas Tank Space, I decided to get one more EV Item dealt with today!

The Other project of using the basic instrument display was removed from the car and used as a reference structure for making a back shell plug, with the intent to make a mold and create instrument cluster back shells. that was some time ago, and at the last opportunity to work on it, it was ready for sanding, smoothing and prep fpr making the mold, but - it was still holding the operational analog gauges captive, so today - I finally got or took the time to get serios and spring the original instrument rack free!!

Using the Wifes never before used Dremel, and both the carbide cutt-off and the small router bit to start the jail break! After the UV-Curing Body Plastic and Aluminum Mesh were cut through, the next material was the ill fated and badly chosen Dollerama Modeling clay - which of course made a lot of dust with the use of the rotary cut-off carbide.

Next attack was with the Router Bit, and finally saw-blade knifes to clear the remaining Expando-foam support, and release the back-shell from the basic instrument support!

The Total time to spring the Instrument rack and clean up the back shell plug was about an hour and fifteen minutes. Not so bad, actually! Now I just need to vacuum the Ammeter, and Voltmeter, and decide if they are going to be serviced and checked for valid performance, or simply put back in service while I work out the back shell mold/parts process!

3D Scanning Gas Tank space - By Hand!

Now that the normal requirements of summer holidays have been taken care of, I have finally had time to get some things done on the Electricfly!

As to the Goal of verifying the car can fit specific Lithium Cells into a new location on the car and removing the Lead Acid Batteries, the first Job to work on this week, was the profile and volume measurment of the space under the back seat, or normally called, the Gas Tank area!

I am trying to see if the ThunderSky 100 Ah Cells can, in fact, be used, [Dimensions:179×62×218(mm)] or if the largest cells that might fit would be their 40 Ah cells [Dimensions:116×46×190(mm)]!

Not having the budget for a nice hand held 3D Scanner like the Zcorp's ZScanners - I opted for Slow-Mo 3D Measurment. I had the option of going low-tech and slo-mo, to save a chunk of money, and turns out - using about 8 hours of my time and time with the vehicle on a drive-on hoist to do the measurements by hand.

I used a 12" Digital Caliper, a piece of white painted peg board, 2' x 4' and trimmed to 45" length to fit between the rear wheels, and 4 tie-wraps (or Zip ties as Mike - the worker at Florida Garage, where I used the hoist, called them) to secure the panel under the rear of the car!

OK - Setup took about an hour, then the work began - Measuring the vertical 'depth' up from the face of the Peg board, at each hole, up to the first obstruction, or the external skin of the car in the gas tank well, and then writing the measurment onto the white face of the peg board at that hole, then measuring the next hole!

Wednesday, gave me setup and measuring for a couple hours. then Today - I was back at the Body Shop at about 7:20 Am - Shop hours - to continue. I finally finished measuring all 24 x 39 reference holes - 936 of them in total, at about Noon! Average time in total = 2.225 minutes per hole!

X-Y Measurment Precision:
Peg Board Holes diameter = 0.258",
Vernier Depth Stem (Tail), Approximately 1/8" x 1/16"
Position Accuracy of the depth measurment is therefor - based on the hole / Tail fit equation - very limited, ie: Hole Size is 200% to 400% of the Vernier Tail used for depth measurment, so X-Y Precision is quite variable, on the order of +/- 1/8".
Verical Precision
Vertial Angular Perfection = +/- 5 to 10 Degrees (Vertical Perpendicularity) hard to maintain precision tighter than 2 Degrees variation.
Target Precision therefore varies by as much as +/- 0.25" to 0.50"
Depth Precistion
Digital Vernier accuracy: 0.001" - 0.0005".

While the Digital Vernier is a very highly Acruate Instrument, the ability to get a net measurement precision close to it's capabilities for this excercise was compromised by all of the above reasons, plus one more:
the Inability to secure the Pegboard perfectly flat to the underside of the vehicle to start with. Due to the simple attachment technique, designed for minimalistic techniques, and speedy setup with limited precision tooling equipment, resulting in both a sloped peg board instalion in the fore and aft direction, and a slight slope in the left- right locations.

A Further issue compromising Accuracy, was the inability to see the point of impact or touch point of the tail of the vernier in many of the hole measurments,essentially it's hard to see clearly through the Peg board itself, limited light - mostly from the rolled up shop door to the rear of the vehicle, and hard to hold a well pointed light and simultaneously ensure good verticality of the Vernier, and good target selection and measurement.

Bottom Line - While the Vernier displayed 3 decimal accuracy, I wrote down to two decimals, will round off to 1 decimal and subtract 0.1" from the rounded off figure, for measurment of the EPS Foam for building a Volume & Fit Model to verify the Space and Volume as a package, and visualize the actual space available, suitable for using the space for fitting new Lithium Cells in the gas Tank Area.

The Process Continues!

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

NoGas96Volts gets Recognised in the top 10 Blogs!

NoGas96Volts was just published in the list of “DIY Electric Cars: 40 Top Blogs for Learning about the Electric Car Conversion Movement” - and came in #5 of the first list - Individual Conversion Projects!

Check it out - it looks like a great collection of EV related sources!

This Posting also includes topics such as Electric Car Conversion General Tips, and Electric Car Conversion News And Trends.

It also is a site with aditional content and subject matter on online colleges!