I bought the best Tesla Model 3 rival from 2008 (aka “The World’s Shittest Electric Car”)

[Tayne]

35 minutes ago, Kiltox said:

I think it’s a DC motor. They changed to AC in later models I believe. 

FL swap it is then!

Find a scrappers near you that breaks fork lifts.

[Supernaut]

10 hours ago, Tayne said:

FL swap it is then!

Find a scrappers near you that breaks fork lifts.

Good shout!

I used to drive a Cat electric forklift in a previous job a few years back. It had a bit of poke considering it was moving circa 5 tons of counterweight around!

Admittedly it was probably down to the extremely short gearing. It would max out at an indicated 18mph on the digital speedometer. That feels bloody fast when you have zero suspension, solid tyres and rear wheel steering though.

[Tayne]

There’s a chap on YaTube! called Damien McGuire who ran a DC forklift motor in his e39 5 series for four years.

The OpenInverter and DIYElectricCar forums are worth a look, there’s a lot of very useable hardware coming out of broken hybrids at the moment.

[Kiltox]

Interior just oozes kwalitee 

[hairnet]

and you were slagging the fox about that

sling this under it

zero emissions ftw

[Supernaut]

3 hours ago, Tayne said:

There’s a chap on YaTube! called Damien McGuire who ran a DC forklift motor in his e39 5 series for four years.

The OpenInverter and DIYElectricCar forums are worth a look, there’s a lot of very useable hardware coming out of broken hybrids at the moment.

Aye, the thought did occur to me that Kiltox might be able to source some better batteries from an old Prius or suchlike.

Either way, Kiltox, you're braver than me. Normal car electrics give me TEH FEARS, let alone a whole electric car!

[barefoot]

I don't want you to think I'm being funny or anything, but that looks really, really shit.

[somewhatfoolish]

7 hours ago, Kiltox said:

Interior just oozes kwalitee 

It looks slightly better appointed inside than a Little Tikes Cosy Coupe. Do any of the gauges work or are they just dial-shaped pictures to fill up the dash?

[Tayne]

10 hours ago, Supernaut said:

Aye, the thought did occur to me that Kiltox might be able to source some better batteries from an old Prius or suchlike.

Either way, Kiltox, you're braver than me. Normal car electrics give me TEH FEARS, let alone a whole electric car!

 

Like a lot of things, I think its simple once you understand how it all works.

I think starting with an electric car is probably easier than converting (no ECU / can bus shenanigans required) but I'm not sure the MegaCity is the best base.

 

Here's the chap who's going to stick that 100bhp Outlander motor into a Twizzy (17bhp from factory).

 

 

And here's Damien doing drivetrain number 3 (in 8 years) in his e39

 

 

[Snipes]

Hey, do we know anyone who might have a 302 v8 sat in a garage, not doing anything? 

[Kiltox]

13 hours ago, somewhatfoolish said:

It looks slightly better appointed inside than a Little Tikes Cosy Coupe. Do any of the gauges work or are they just dial-shaped pictures to fill up the dash?

At the moment, the latter. I have a feeling that may not be the intention though  

[Wack]

I'd have range anxiety in a 5 year old BMW i3 so i'd be panicking by the end of the street in that

good luck

[Kiltox]

Started having a look at this today, short on time/energy at the moment 

Strip down went well....

Getting the seats out was much easier than expected but I think that’s because they’ve been out recently. 

Tested all the battery voltages and they seem to be healthy enough - not sure we do have a dead one after all. Restored the charging circuitry to the default (fucked) Aixam charger which revived the clocks. 

Going to send the charger to @cobblers to see if he can work his magic on it, I think!

Surprised to see it had new batteries in 2015 at a cost of £1200!

 

[Tayne]

I suspect that boot release location makes more sense on a left hand drive car.

[Kiltox]

Just now, Tayne said:

I suspect that boot release location makes more sense on a left hand drive car.

Yeah, right enough it would!  

Still, if it wasn’t for @strangeangel’s “where the fuck is the boot release on an Aixam” thread on here,  I’d still be looking for it!

[hairnet]

daft question

are the batts nothing special??

even at 50 quid a batt thats a lot of money - 83 seems nuts?

 

[320touring]

They'll be deep cycle batteries (like leisure batteries for a caravan). Designed to be drained much lower than normal car batteries. £83 a battery isn't too steep for them

[hairnet]

11 minutes ago, 320touring said:

They'll be deep cycle batteries (like leisure batteries for a caravan). Designed to be drained much lower than normal car batteries. £83 a battery isn't too steep for them

ahh ok

@Kiltox is it a 13A plug into a wall to charge via the charger?

have seen a place that does the 13A to type 2 charger as is common now (omg nearly a leef) but its ££ (not like the batteries tho)

could you buy a type 2 charge head and arrange the rest via a rewire?

[Tayne]

The charger in the car converts AC to DC and splits it’s output to all the batteries. I didn’t see any BMS (battery management system) kit on the cells so I’d like to think there’s some BMS functionality in the charger.

However the car is a bit shit so who knows.

[Kiltox]

3 hours ago, hairnet said:

ahh ok

@Kiltox is it a 13A plug into a wall to charge via the charger?

have seen a place that does the 13A to type 2 charger as is common now (omg nearly a leef) but its ££ (not like the batteries tho)

could you buy a type 2 charge head and arrange the rest via a rewire?

It is, but the 230v goes straight to the charger unit via a mains cable that runs from the back of the car to the front - there’s no electronics in the charging connector or the cable from car to wall. 

Any battery balancing etc is therefore done by the charger under the bonnet which is what is suspect, so without fixing it or replacing it, you’re back at square one. 

[PhilA]

 

 

[Aston Martin]

I'd never tell Kiltox, but I need to see this working.

[Kiltox]

Right. I’ve massively neglected pretty much everything for the past few months however today I have dispatched a shipment of fail to @cobblers in the hope that the Aixam battery charger unit can be resurrected. 

Updates as I get them!

[SiC]

On 6/5/2020 at 1:28 AM, Tayne said:

I didn’t see any BMS (battery management system) kit on the cells so I’d like to think there’s some BMS functionality in the charger.

Unless the charger had taps to each battery then it's unlikely. Given these are lead acids, balancing will be done by float charging. Basically over charging the charged cells until the under charged cells fully charge. If the charge current level isn't excessive, the gasses will recombine and not vent. 

[SiC]

Looks like the pack is wired for 48v as 3 batteries in parallel and 4 lots of them in series.

So probably a series wound motor, pretty much out of a forklift?