Project Strangeangel's Shite-tastic Shenanigans 12/12 NEW MOTOR - ACHIEVED.

[somewhatfoolish]

Sadface.

[busmansholiday]

Perhaps you have now found out why there are so few are left?

Seriously, I'm sure it'll be just a minor* electrical fault, you'll be laughing about it in the pub by errrrrrrrr...

[Cavcraft]

Ahh, what a pisser.  Hope it's something easy to fix.

[strangeangel]

1 hour ago, busmansholiday said:

Perhaps you have now found out why there are so few are left?

 

 

6 minutes ago, Cavcraft said:

Ahh, what a pisser.  Hope it's something easy to fix.

 

 

Hope so, but I'm not holding my breath given that this one's already been fiddled with. Honestly, I didn't buy an electric Aixam because I thought I'd enjoy millions of miles of trouble-free motoring. Everyone knows what dismal, badly-made heaps they are, but here on Autoshite we all love an underdog, don't we?

 

I'm going to pull it to bits next weekend and see if I can figure out what it has crisped, and how viable repairing it would be. I already know it's not the speed controller, as the status light is flashing the code for 'normal operation'. It's a bugger but what can you do? ATEOTD it's a 10 year old battery powered car built by known incompetents in France... I was always sticking my head in the lion's mouth on this one!

 

 

[Cavcraft]

The Autoshite way would be to put several fucked old car batteries in the boot with some coat hanger 'wire' leading between them. 

[Dave_Q]

8 minutes ago, Cavcraft said:

The Autoshite way would be to put several fucked old car batteries in the boot with some coat hanger 'wire' leading between them. 

I think that's also the Aixam way tbh.

I guess there's not much left if the controller is OK, possibly the motor? I guess it's a good opportunity to upgrade...

[strangeangel]

29 minutes ago, Cavcraft said:

The Autoshite way would be to put several fucked old car batteries in the boot with some coat hanger 'wire' leading between them. 

 

You've seen one of these then? ?

 

19 minutes ago, Dave_Q said:

I think that's also the Aixam way tbh.

I guess there's not much left if the controller is OK, possibly the motor? I guess it's a good opportunity to upgrade...

 

Well, we know the charger is fucking fucked M8 as the car's had that Halfords effort bodged in by the previous owners. The info I got from eBay the other day says you can unplug that  and the Aixam ECU (1ME221 and 1ME 222 respectively) and the car will still run, albeit with no instrument lights.

 

 

Given that neither of those appears to be mission critical, and the motor controller is telling me it's OK, it does rather point to the motor. If that does turn out to be the case, then I'd be interested to know what caused the motor to cark it.

 

[Zelandeth]

Given the high current involved in the traction circuit, it could well be something as simple as a duff connection somewhere.

Even a slightly suboptimal connection will get bloody hot with this sort of power being pumped through it and could then cause a burnup.

My money is on it being a weedy but of wiring or underrated connector that's been toasted.

[strangeangel]

4 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

Given the high current involved in the traction circuit, it could well be something as simple as a duff connection somewhere.

Even a slightly suboptimal connection will get bloody hot with this sort of power being pumped through it and could then cause a burnup.

My money is on it being a weedy but of wiring or underrated connector that's been toasted.

 

Hope so. I rearranged the driveway tonight so the Aixam is by the garage door ready for the weekend. I probably shouldn't have, but I turned it on and stuck it in 'D' to see what would happen. To my surprise it moved forwards, very slowly and the big red exclamation mark light came on. I turned it off again sharpish and turned the big red isolator switch under the bonnet.

 

[strangeangel]

Go faster bits arrived today courtesy of @Tamworthbay... I'll set these to one side for now for obvious reasons ?

 

 

[somewhatfoolish]

Bernard the battery?

 

[strangeangel]

7 minutes ago, somewhatfoolish said:

Bernard the battery?

 

 

The car they belonged to was called Bernard, do keep up at the back there

 

[strangeangel]

I haz been shopping...

 

 

It's all the bits from an abandoned EV conversion bar the motor; all new and unused, just been sitting in a barn for a few years. I haven't had a close look yet, but I'm hoping the charger can be used in the Aixam (once I've figured out why it doesn't go). Anyway, it seemed worth getting for £130. Also included were these monsters:

 

 

They're probably no good - they were left in the barn three years ago (again, brand new), and all have about 3.5V in them now. I've put one on charge, but I'll be surprised if I don't end up weighing them in. They're far too big for the Aixam, anyway.

 

[Six-cylinder]

21 hours ago, strangeangel said:

They're probably no good - they were left in the barn three years ago (again, brand new), and all have about 3.5V in them now. I've put one on charge, but I'll be surprised if I don't end up weighing them in. They're far too big for the Aixam, anyway.

Milk float!

[strangeangel]

1 hour ago, Six-cylinder said:

Milk float!

 

I asked the chap if they were milk float batteries! Sadly, I'm pretty certain they're all toast, the most any of them will charge up to is about 5.5V,

 

[strangeangel]

Today's efforts to try and work out why my Aixam won't go weren't particularly successful, in that I couldn't see any obviously burned components under the bonnet. I thought it'd be a good time to take the battery charger off and see if that can be repaired:

 

 

Someone's already been in it by the looks. Meanwhile, this:

 

 

is what's been charging the traction batteries in its stead. Excitingly* this was full of water, as was Aixam's tragic bellypan fashioned from soundproofing mat. This has worked about as well as you might expect; it's excellent water retention properties meant that the bolts holdng it to the frame were extensively rotted - with most having to be cut off - and lots of rust on the frame itself.

 

I think the next step is going to be the removal of the motor and getting it tested somewhere. With that in mind I've taken the front bumper and the soundproofing mat inner wings off... don't think it should be too bad a job now.

 

 

[Cavcraft]

This really deserves to have a happy ending (probably both meanings) for you.

[strangeangel]

7 hours ago, Cavcraft said:

This really deserves to have a happy ending (probably both meanings) for you.

 

It's all good - this was always going to be a project. I wanted to learn a bit about EVs and I'm certainly doing that. ATEOTD I don't depend on it to get me about; when I read some 'shiters tales of automotive woe I realise how lucky I am to have the fleet I have, and a OH who tolerates my, er, eccentric taste in vehicles.

 

[UltraWomble]

Did you get any joy from that scrappers Bolton way over the bits?

[strangeangel]

On 12/15/2019 at 12:13 AM, UltraWomble said:

Did you get any joy from that scrappers Bolton way over the bits?

 

Nah, he went quiet on me after asking me which bit of the car he was selling was the charger. I sent him a description of it and where it was - no reply. Nudged him a couple of days later and no reply. Very odd, and not sure how to approach this for the best now. Maybe wait a bit longer and ask him how much he wants for the whole car (from my selling account this time)?

 

Anyway, it's looking like the charger isn't my biggest problem now, that little haul I picked up the other day contains a brand-new charger rated the same as the dead Aixam one. No, what I probably need now is a motor. The weather was OK today so I headed outside to check all the 48V connections as suggested by @Zelandeth. They all looked OK, except for this suspicious looking one on the top of the motor:

 

 

It's intact, but you can see how the plastic cap has melted. I think the next step is to remove the motor and get someone to test it. If it's goosed, though, do I really want to fit another Aixam one (0-30 in 15 seconds, kids) or take this opportunity to fit something that wields a bigger stick?

 

Small progress on a couple of other fronts was made today... I've always fought shy of doing any jobs where the instructions begin 'remove the dash', but today I solved the issue of the Ami's non-stop wipers by doing just that. Six self-tappers and thirty seconds later and it was off! Park wire yanked from motor, reassembly is the reverse process of removal and job done. I even remedied the Autocruise's latest electrical faux pas, but I'll probably write about that in the caravan thread once the switch I need has arrived.

 

[Zelandeth]

Electric motors... especially big ones...are usually pretty reliable.

First thing I'd suggest doing would be to take that terminal off, clean up the mating surfaces of the ring, and reassemble it.

If the motor was pulling excess current, you'd expect both terminals to be showing the same distress.  If only one has got toasty it suggests to me that there's a high impedance connection there.

Whereabouts are you based?

[strangeangel]

8 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

Electric motors... especially big ones...are usually pretty reliable.

First thing I'd suggest doing would be to take that terminal off, clean up the mating surfaces of the ring, and reassemble it.

If the motor was pulling excess current, you'd expect both terminals to be showing the same distress.  If only one has got toasty it suggests to me that there's a high impedance connection there.

Whereabouts are you based?

 

Cheers, I shall certainly do that... tomorrow if the weather allows. My 'hood is HD8 (West Yorkshire).

 

[Zelandeth]

Shame you're so far away as I'd gladly lend a hand.

If there are any more terminals like that it would be well worth undoing, cleaning and resecuring all of them.

Given the currents involved here *anything* that's presenting resistance electrically is bad news.  Will only show itself when under load too...which may well explain why she's so lacking in grunt.

We used to run a trio of the electric Peugeot 106s as pool cars at work, and they were absolutely fantastic little things around town.  Ran out of puff anywhere north of about 40mph (limited to 50 as I recall), but the silent pickup from standing still to 30 was quite impressive.  Had really good regenerative braking too, which made seeing how far you could go without touching the brake pedal a good game.

I used to routinely be able to get 50 miles out of them and still get back to base comfortably...though co-workers used to struggle to get 30 in a fair few cases it sounded like.

[strangeangel]

10 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

If there are any more terminals like that it would be well worth undoing, cleaning and resecuring all of them.

 

 

Yeah, after what you said I was starting to think that it would be a good idea to clean all the 48V connections. Happily it's pretty basic stuff that even a mechanical primate like me can follow, and there aren't that many connections to worry about. After the isolator switch there's a mahoosive relay and then the speed controller and wires to the motor itself. Here's an annotated diagram provided by a kindly soul on an EV forum (he has two electric Aixams!) that shows how these things hang together:

 

 

I think this may have to wait 'till the weekend, though, as it's bollock shatteringly cold here, and I have an essay that isn't going to write itself...

 

[strangeangel]

Update on that recalcitrant scrappers in Bolton... I messaged him the other day (this time from my selling account, natch) to ask if he's like to sell the whole car. Guess what I got back?

 

Quote

hi wot will you pay thanks

 

Should have guessed, really, shouldn't I? ?

 

[spartacus]

He's going to want it out of the way surely, he'll have bills to pay like the rest of us, make him an offer of what you genuinely want to pay, 

If he refuses then maybe somebody else* will make a similar offer in a couple of weeks, which should hopefully reinforce the fact it is worth what you offered...

[strangeangel]

11 minutes ago, spartacus said:

He's going to want it out of the way surely, he'll have bills to pay like the rest of us, make him an offer of what you genuinely want to pay, 

If he refuses then maybe somebody else* will make a similar offer in a couple of weeks, which should hopefully reinforce the fact it is worth what you offered...

 

I'll definitely make him an offer, but I do think it's part of the normal way of things that people selling stuff tell you how much they want for it, rather than this dancing around the houses me trying to guess.

 

[spartacus]

Agreed, it's crap, good luck with your offer though. I'm looking forward to the outcome. In a few years you'll be heralded as an AS trailblazer, we'll all be asking for your advice on fixing up knackered hybrids!:-)

[UltraWomble]

£100 and a Fray Bentos pie of his choice?
See what he comes back with.

Do you need the batteries from it? Maybe tell him to keep the batteries and weigh them in and see if a onner will land it

[strangeangel]

16 minutes ago, UltraWomble said:

£100 and a Fray Bentos pie of his choice?
See what he comes back with.

Do you need the batteries from it? Maybe tell him to keep the batteries and weigh them in and see if a onner will land it

 

Naah, my batteries are apparently OK, and the ones in that will be fucked - that'll be why it's been scrapped most likely. I reckon he's going to want more than a ton for it though. The last one with duff batteries that went through eBay made £300.

 

Thing is, if he doesn't sell it to me he'll likely be stuck with it - that one (and mine) both came from the big smoke originally, and other remaining 10 roadworthy ones are likely down there too - a long old way from Bolton. And it's officially scrapped too, so it can't go back on the road.