Posts

Testing, testing, .. out road.

in ,

60_testingThe conversion of a petrol or diesel vehicle is the most sustainable and economical way of driving a perfect electric car. The main idea behind this, is to re-use all the vehicle´s components that have no impact in the internal combustion engine, and to substitute it with a full electric motor. Engine, radiator, petrol tank, exhaust tubes, alternator, etc will be removed, reducing the car´s weight. By having a chassis with all the necessary parts for driving, as interior, brakes, tyres, shock absorbers, etc, all effort is reduced to install and design an electric system with a motor and batteries.

61_testingIt is very important to choose a good design for the electric system, electric motor, battery pack and motor controller should have the same specifications in power and speed to the ones the car when it was originally designed. Too much power could damage the traction components or may not respond as well to breaking, and too little could cause the gears no to acquire the adequate speed.

Elektrun is a project that was born two years ago to probe the concept of transforming a city car to electric, ideal for short trips within the city.  We have chosen a Renault Twingo to build a prototype,  it is a vehicle with little weight and a reduced size, and after two years of design, test and experiments we have made it work.

62_testingThe main issue for this kind of transformation is the range the batteries will achieve. Now days there are cars that can drive 700kms in one single charge, in order to achieve that, it needs at least between 70Kw and 80Kw. Our prototype comes with a 7,4Kw.

 

 

63_testingThis prototype has an 15KW AC induction motor with a maximum torque of 80Nm, a battery pack of 72V and 100Ah, it has an 80V and 350Amp controller. This can speed the car to 90km/h in 5th gear.

The first tests shown the total weight didn’t affect at all in corners, the shock absorbers responded well as expected, and by removing the engine noise the driving was much more comfortable.

64_testingAn additional vacuum pump was installed to help the braking system. The braking was also performing very well as, it responded to hard braking and kept the car stopped in steep ramps.

 

65_testingA small display was installed in the interior to monitor, at any time, battery usage, current, motor temperature, state of charge, etc.

 

66_testingLights and interior accessories as electric windows, radio, air flow, window cleaner, etc were kept in the car.

This car takes 8 hours to fully charge the battery pack, although there are chargers that could reduce this time from 6 to 4 hours.

 

 

You can see a video about the first tests here:

The adapter plate

in ,

One of the key aspects of a conversion is how to connect the existing gearbox to the new electric motor. This is normally done by an adapter plate that fits in both sides, the old gear box and the new motor.

This has to be designed and fabricated with high precision, as the geometry of the whole transmission is under jeopardy if there are errors. There are already manufacturers with already made adapter plates designed and proven to be working perfect. The other option, will cost more time, but it may be cheaper, is to design yourself. That was my case, as so far none did a conversion for a Renault Twingo yet.

So, I decided to design it myself, and give the machinist an sketch of the actual plate.

The plate needs to be made out of a material that needs to be strong, light and cheap. The perfect balance between those 3 variables is aluminium, that is why 99% of the adapter plates are done in such material.

The thickness for the adapter plate depends on the torque and power for the electric motor. For a 14 Kw motor I was recommended a 17mm plate, but my local supplier only had 10mm or 20mm (a paradox working next to Alcoa), so I went for 20mm, that would not add much more weight and it would improve how strong the joint would be.

I started to disassemble the gearbox, and making a template based on a front picture.

20_adapter_plate

After having a proper front picture, I edited with a photo manipulation software (The Gimp) to have just the shape of it.

21_adapter_plate

Once I have a shape of it, I started taking measurements from the centre to the screw holes, between them, and so on, to have a real measurements of it. As in this procedure, error needs to be near zero, I recommend to use a good calibre.

22_adapter_plate

Once all measure have been done (double check and triple check), I draw that template into a 2D CAD software (LibreCAD), and draw many references within the same distances, all the centre points of the pin holes and the actual centre.

23_adapter_plate

Then, when I finished drawing all the circles and, I measured within the 2D CAD software all lines and compare with the real measurements. Surprise, surprise..I had some minor errors.

24_adapter_plate
After double checking the real measurements and the positions in the 2D draw, I printed out in paper 100% sized, and I could see all the wholes were in the exact position, so I gave the design pre- green light.

I took the final design to the machinist as ask him to fabricate a 1mm cheap copy just to try all the screws. They have a super-sized kind of plotter/cutter that can cut  2 cms aluminium as it was butter.

25_adapter_plate

I tried the 1mm template and I fitted like a glove. Just one small 8mm was a bit miss-aligned (about 0.5 mm), the rest all fitted perfect. So I gave the 100% green light and I asked the machinist to cut it in a 20 mm aluminium plate. Even though it took some time as the were out of stock, finally I had it and connect both, gearbox and motor like a charm.

26_adapter_plate