After mentioning the motor controller temperature faults to Ives (the designer) at Synkromotive, he suggested we swap it out for a newer one. I went into the shop this evening and swapped out the controller. Ives looked at the old one and basically told me that I had beta test unit #2 with tiny heatsinks, bad ventilation and very little filtering on the temperature fault circuitry. Apparently other customers have had the same issues and the new controller should be far better.
One other thing the folks at Synkromotive showed me was a newer vacuum assist pump for the braking system that's very quiet from EVComponents. It's a bit expensive, but the pump produced very little noise, even with the hood open and my hear near it. Also, to enhance the power steering, they use the electric power steering pump from a Toyota MR2 so that parallel parking isn't as hard. More info here.
So far, the new controller is doing just fine. It also got bumped up to 700 motor amps from 600 when starting from a stop. The tires do a wonderful little "chirp" when I floor it from a stop in first gear before the batteries current maxes out at 300 amps. I could kick both of those up, but choose not to so I can save breaking my transmission and batteries.
I'll try and keep y'all posted on the progress. I'm a bit tired of working through issues right now, so if the car drives well, you might not hear from me for a few weeks.
One other complaint I received was that the open-source Civic plans were not complete on the Civic-EV Google Group. The complaint is valid and I plan on finishing things when the summer is over and I'm past my burn-out stage on this project. I hope to just enjoy driving the car for awhile. The modified charging circuit seems to be doing its job well and I'm happy that problem is over.
In the meantime, I'll be attending the Wayland Invitational at PIR to rub shoulders with the bigwigs in the EV industry at the end of July.
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2 comments:
The vacuum pump that Metric Mind sells is the best one out there. It is the quietest one that I have ever heard, it has an integrated switch, and it was designed for EV use so it has sufficient capacity to operate without a reservoir. In my opinion, it is the best value for the money.
I too am currently beta testing a Synkro Controller and have the newer model with all the upgrades. I have it configured for a 72 volt system and so far it seems to be doing just fine. I took it out today and did some on road data logging to send to Synkro. I have my usb connected keep it ready for some quick on road testing. I do not have my dc dc hooked up but have a 12 accessory battery. It does not hold a good charge even though it is new. I need to connect my dc dc again. I am pleased so far and we do plan on bumping the voltage to 96 here this coming week. I am pleased so far and in this hot weather the controller is not getting hot during freeway drives.
greenev.zapto.org/electricvw
Pete :)
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