Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Tachometer Problems and Insurance

As with any project, things rarely go as you hope they do. The Zolox speed sensor, which has been used in countless EVs is flat-lining (i.e. being pulled down) whenever I accelerate, which gives me a tach RPM of (drum roll....) zero. The Zolox sensor works using a magnetic sensor that detects four small magnets in a spinning disk. It turns out that having a 9" DC motor that puts out large magnetic fields interferes with this (go figure).

After getting some advice from Bryan at Belktronix and some EMI suppression engineers from work, I plan to add some steel shielding around the Zolox sensor to break up the magnetic flux lines that may be interfering with the sensor. Stay tuned...

Since this vehicle is now road-worthy, I thought it might be a good idea to get it fully insured before I take too many long drives. Getting insurance for an EV conversion is somewhat tricky. There's a local insurance agent who promotes electric vehicles but was rather embarrassed when her underwriter refused to insure my vehicle because I wanted to use it as a daily driver. Apparently having an EV conversion that's just a weekend fun vehicle isn't a problem. I ended up going with Progressive auto insurance and was able to get what I wanted.

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