This blog documents the restoration, and conversion, of a 1965 Humber (Singer) Vogue to a fully electric vehicle. The Vogue will be powered by an 11kW(modified), 3 phase industrial AC motor, controlled by an industry standard Variable Speed Drive (VSD) or Inverter. To be able to produce the 400 volts phase to phase the VSD will need about 600 VDC of batteries. A big thanks to the contributors on the AEVA forum: http://forums.aeva.asn.au/forums/

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

First trip to Work and new Tyres

I drove the Vogue to work for the first time today - partly because the tyre place is over the road and partly because a couple of colleagues that have been following progress are leaving at the end of the week.
I now have Hankook 185/65R13 Enfren tyres on the car.

The Vogue on it's new silicone.

The guys (and gals) at work were uncondionally supportive and it was a immense relief to have other people see the car actaully working, not just a web page.
The trip went without incident. To and from work is 30km total, the other 8km was joy rides which cost me around 15km in range - hmmm! (Whoops. I realised that I didn't take Eastlink so my trip was 17.1km one way - possibly more going home. That makes more sense.)
By the time I arrived home tonight (Odo=110km), the total was 38.21km travelled with 9.01AH taken from the pack. At 600V that's 5400W/hr with equates to 142wh/km. The dash showed remaining range as 29.40km to 80% DOD (I allowed 16AH for use).

While we had the LEAF on trial we got around 170wh/km so I'm really happy with the figures.
The drive to work was on 70km/h and 80km/h roads so the 67km projected range for 16AH is pretty much on the button from Woody's (AEVA) spreadsheet.
Since the trip to work was on the old cruddy tyres, next time should be even better.

I still have a tailshaft issues which I think now must be differential pinion angle.
My target for the moment is VicRoads approval so everything else can wait. I pick up the polycarbonate partition for the boot tomorrow and I'll be preparing the car for inspection over the Christmas to new Year break.

Friday, December 14, 2012

Boot (Trunk) Partition

In order to satisfy regulations regarding not being able to touch the cables carrying EV traction battery voltages, I will need a plastic partition in the boot. The old fuel tank cover handles the switchgear on the left of the boot.
I will be using 3mm polycarbonate and it will be mounted just this side of the four packs along the rear firewall. It will be a bit fiddly as it has to be cut around the boot hinges.
I thought I'd get some quotes on cutting and drilling polycarbonate before I bought a piece at Bunnings (hardware store) and did it myself. The second quote was only just a bit more expensive than buying an uncut sheet. So, I dropped this drawing

into
Plastics for Industry P/L
13/189 Cheltenham Rd
Keysborough VIC 3173
today. Ashton was a pretty easy guy to deal with.
It should be ready early next week so I can instal it over the Christmas break - assuming I got all the measurements correct.

Oh, and my tailshaft is ready for pick-up.

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Tailshaft Wobble

Yes it's definite. I put the Vogue on axle stands and removed the rear wheels. Above 70kmh the wobble gets worse and worse.I removed it last night and took it up to the driveshaft people this afternoon. I hope to have it back Friday or early next week.

Saturday, December 8, 2012

Pack Balancing and Charger Modifications

With all the manual(ish) pack balancing I do, I had already designed a small circuit that would automatically deliver 3A until the pack's BMS cut out, then dial back to 180mA - the balancing current for my packs. I wasn't looking forward to making these, nor fitting them.
With that in mind I thought I would try again to find a schematic of the Kingpan chargers that I am using. I found a thread on Endless-sphere that (somewhat indirectly - I can't figure out now how I found it) pointed to a site in Europe where a guy (thanks Albert) had reversed engineered some other brand of charger based on a TL494 chip (my favourite PWM controller).

I grabbed the circuit, pulled the lid off one of my spare chargers and - guess what - yes they are practically identical. There are a few resistor values that are different but just about everything is the same. It was relatively easy to devise a small daughter board that used the Op-amp that was driving the transition of a bi-colour LED on the charger to trigger the changer to cut it's current from 3A down to 180mA. The challenge was to be able to do the modifications without having to remove the main PCB from the case - with all the complications of re-seating power devices on heatsinks. I found that the best was was to remove one resistor and solder on four wires to a daughter board. The daughter board is circled in red. The heatshrink gets cut down, shrunk, then glued to the nearest strong component. I'll improve that toroid's mounting too - while I have the Sikaflex out.
Now this charger has built-in balancing tailored to my pack's BMSs.
I don't have to do all the chargers at once, just as I get around to them.

Driver Seat Fixed

As per a previous post, following the fourth drive Laurel didn't like the way the upholstery was behaving on the driver's seat - so out it came. I pull all the clips off, removed the back upholstery and foam and revealed the problem. We deliberately did not glue the seat velour down to the raised parts of the seat - the grey bits shown. The issue arises when you get in or out of the car you tend to rotate in the seat which pulls the velour slightly.

Now it's glued thoroughly - and the seat is back in the car.

Battery Packs all Good

I have been a bit slack with the blog this week. Last weekend, following dis-assembling pack #2, I  charged all packs as per normal then used my single balancing charger to "top off" each pack. I got the job done over the weekend - way better than the 2 weeks using two chargers last time. Some packs balanced up within 3 hours, maximum was 10 hours.
All the packs took 3 Amps for over 3 hours on the full charge so overall the cell balance is looking pretty good now.

I also got to the bottom of the AH difference from Vogue display to actual.
I stupidly was assuming that the current sensor put out 2.5 volts for no current (correct), then 5V for +100A and 0V for -100A - WRONG. Upon careful reading of the specs. I realised the the sensitivity spec. 20mv/A means exactly that. 20mv/A then 200mV/10A then 2000mV/100A or +4.5V for +100A and 0.5V for -100A. Curiously when we set up a 12A current flow to calibrate the sensor, it was only 17% out - not 25%. Anyway it's now calibrated to within 200mA - the resolution of the Digital to Analogue input on the dashboard PIC micro processor.
That also means that we really did pull 14.3AH from the pack which also means that all cell pairs are pretty much OK.
So the total range for 16AH that was projected as 80km is closer to 70km under those driving conditions. That's still good - old tyres, no front end alignment yet and it was a lot of stop/start driving (137Wh/km).

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Another Battery Pack Check

Following the drive described in my previous post I need to iron out why the packs pulled up a little "short".
I pulled subpack #2 out of the boot, removed the lid,  and measured all the cell pairs. Fifteen of the sixteen cell pairs were between 3.19 and 3.21 VDC. One pair was 2.98 VDC.
I removed those two cells and marked them 11A and 11B (eleventh up from the -ve end of the pack) (the cells are 10AH).
I started by charging them individually at exactly 5A and noting the time and current every now and then. Both cells took 9.45AH - they were obviously quite discharged.
I then discharged the cells individually with a 0.8Ohm load down to 2.9VDC. I got just over 9.5AH. The white LED goes out at about 2.5 volts so lets me use a quick glance while I'm working to help prevent over-discharging the cell.


Obviously both cells are fine.

I recharged the cells to 4AH and placed them back in the pack.
I then charged the pack at 3A. The charger dropped out at 3 hours and 25 minutes. That was 10.25AH. The cells I had removed (#11) were the cause of the charge stopping. They had reached 3.9V and stopped the charge.
All remaining cell pairs were at 3.33 to 3.34VDC. I left the charge current at 170mA overnight - for 7 hours (1.2AH).
Next morning, I loaded cell pair #11 with 0.8 Ohms and kicked the charger back to 3A. It charged for 40 minutes before dropping back from another cell pair getting to 3.9VDC. Most cells pairs were now over 3.5VDC.

That's a total of 13.45AH for most of the cells. The Vogue had indicated 12.19AH which appears to be about 10% out. I will check the current sensor in the Vogue with a measured current, as that is something I have just "believed" - up until now.
I have also heavily integrated (smoothed) the current sensor value in both hardware and software. Perhaps I should not - and just smooth the display value.

Monday, November 26, 2012

Fourth Drive - Proving the Battery Pack

It was always on my radar that I had to test the battery packs beyond the 10AH mark before "trusting" the dashboard range estimation - why? My pack essentially consists of 384 cells arranges as 192 in series and 2 parallel. That means it's a 20AH pack. For the purposes of range estimation I assume a 16AH pack - 80% DOD (Depth of Discharge). If I have any "dud" cells then the packs will only be good for 10AH.
So this Sunday morning I set out to drive the pack to the 12AH mark.

Ready to go - it gets hubcaps and wheel trim when I get the new tyres.

Around and around the big block I went - about a 7 to 7.5km trip per loop - I did 40km starting at 10:30AM and finishing around 11:40AM. The "big block" is a drive I can do that is only ever about 2.5 minutes from home so if a battey alarm goes off I can safely get home without damaging the pack. A couple of times I got brave and went a few km right up to the next major intersection. I passsed guys cutting a slot in the road 5 times.

The result:

After arriving back home I reversed up the drive then opened the bonnet to check temperatures etc. Since I haven't mounted the Lenze LCD/keypad in the cabin yet, I have to use it directly on the controller under the bonnet to check motor temperature and controller heatsink temperature - silly me had turned the car off. I re-started it and to my surprise a battery alert started. There were two subpacks that were alerting - subpack #2 in the boot and subpack #10 UNDER the controller tray! Drat!

I haven't pulled either out yet but I'm hoping it's just dud cells and not an overall metering problem (where I think it's 12AH but it's actually 18 or 20AH).

Other issues:
1. I think I have a tailshaft wobble. It's noticable above 70km/h. That's an axle stand check (initially).
2. Laurel didn't like the driver seat upholstery crinkling. I have pulled the the driver seat out and have stripped back the upholstery to glue it down to the foam a lot more (I was a bit skummy with the glue).

The good? It's a real pleasure to drive. I am absolutely amazed that no-one notices the noise - none. This a 1965 Humber Vogue - it should be noisy! I went within a meter of folk waiting to cross the road several times - and I was the only car for a few tens of meters - and it was pretty quiet - people don't notice.

Another good part is the ventilation in the Vogue is way better than the Super Snipe - it's going to be a better summer car for me (no aircon in either - I haven't driven with aircon for years). The Vogue can direct a huge volume of air into the cabin from the behind-the-bonnet scoop (see first picture in this post).
I had also backed off regen braking to a maximum of about 9kw (15 Amps battery current) and it's probably easier to drive. I'd like a cabin regen-trim control I think.

I'll pull battery pack #2 out tonight and do some tests. That will dictate whether I remove the controller tray to get at pack #10. I've begun re-gluing the driver seat.

Thursday, November 22, 2012

Front Door Liner Progress

The next stage in door liner manufacture is to trim around the edges allowed 20 to 25mm for the wrap-around gluing. I also cut around the clips to make gluing less messy. The messy holes for door opener and window winder started as beautifully punched holes but look worse for trimming to ensure that the liners fit nicely.

The orange lines are the direction that the clips were placed on the old door liners. That gives me a fighting chance to getting the clips to line up with the car door holes.
Next stage is snip 'V's into the fabric around corners and glue it down with contact adhesive.

The ever useful butterfly clips get used again. My modified surgical scissors are getting near the end of their useful life (unless I sharpen them) and have been invaluable for close-in cutting like the 'V's.

A few minutes after gluing the edges down, I remove the clips 2 or 3 at a time and give the edges a squish to ensure the fabric is secure then put the clips back on.

Thirty minutes to an hour later I do the same and only place a few clips back.

You can see my fancy 'V' cuts clearly in this picture.


 





  
Glue dry, clips off - ready for the wood trim and fitting to the car.



Blogspot collects statistics that the blog author can review. I find it interesting that the Feburary 23rd 2012 entry 'Seat Diaphragm Choices' is the most viewed post this week. I hope it helps other Hillman/Humber/Singer restorers out a bit. I'm happy to get comments - even on older posts.

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Driver Side Front Door Liner

Due to the fact that I can not open the passenger side front door of the Vogue fully due to the way it's parked in the garage, I have started on the driver side door liner. I'll leave the passenger side for the moment.
The clips hold the fabric in the correct place for gluing once I measure exactly where the silver fabric should sit - 405mm to 410mm below the top of the ply. The 6mm foam and fabric are then glued on. I just have to flip it over and glue the edges down - about a two hour job involving lots of fiddly scissor work.

I noticed this picture of the dash in it's woodgrain surround had never been included in the blog.



This picture was taken shortly after the 20km drive around the "big" block.

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Driver side Rear Door Liner Installed

That's both rear doors done.
It was a bit of a pain as the top left clip refused to clip into the door panel. The hole in the panel was on a detachable piece that just bent into the door when pressure was applied. I cut a small peice of wood and wedged it into the door behind the clip hole then dropped it to the bottom of the door and fished it out when the clip was secured.

Next is the front passenger (left) door.

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Driver side Rear Door liner ready

Things haven't gone to plan in the past couple of weeks. I was hoping to have all the door liners on by now and to have bought the Vogue in to work for it's new tyres (over the road). A bout with a pinched nerve in my back and some family events have slowed things down a bit.

Anyway, the right, rear door liner is ready for the wood trim to go on.

The door has been fitted out so it may get the door liner fitted tonight (unless I'm clipping the rag stealer).













 The rag stealer doing her best to escape William's clutches and be the first dog in the world to be run over by an electric Humber Vogue (during the second drive).

Monday, October 29, 2012

Door Panel Fabric Ready

We had a busy non-Vogue weekend but somewhere Laurel found time to sew up the remaining three door panels (one is already fitted - see here). It's up to me now.

Friday, October 26, 2012

Ev Sound Bite

This 14 second sound bite was extracted from an episode of Futurama.
Sound Bite

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

All Wheels back on

The front wheels were finished on schedule on Saturday and I put them back on the car Sunday.
 The front wheel looks pretty odd here as it's not sitting in the wheel arch properly due to jacking the front up on the crossmember. The wheels need to roll to settle the suspension again (or jack under each wishbone).

In this photo extracted from the second drive video you can see the normal position of the front wheels in the arch.

I spent three hours under the Vogue on Sunday afternoon struggling with the driveshaft front bolts. No matter what I did I could not get my hex-head bolts to pull the universal joint yolk up to the coupler. After a couple of hours (and a rest for my bruised fingers I must admit) I came to realise that the holes in the coupler were out by a very slight amount and that the uni yolk was drilled for 3/8 inch bolts. A 10mm threaded bolt would go through but was an interference fit. That and the slight hole mis-alignment meant I didn't have a hope. I removed the whole driveshaft and drilled the yolk holes out to 10mm - it then went in relatively easily. The yolk centres on the coupler with an internal "ledge" - the bolts are not used to centre it, so it should be fine.

So the Vogue is drivable again. All that remains before I take it for new tyres is to black mastic (seal) some of the window rubbers where water could leech onto the headlining, and to finish the door linings.

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Front Wheels on Target

So far, so good. The front wheels have been wire brushed, sanded and have a coat of rust converter on them - insides and outsides done.


Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Rear Wheels on, Front Wheels off

The rear wheels are finished and back on the car. (New tyres to come soon.)

I even brushed a coat of satin black under the wheel arches.


I'll need to paint under the front wheel arches before the front wheels go back on.

 


I did the wire brushing, sanding and de-rust coat on one wheel tonight.

Hopefully I'll prepare the other wheel tomorrow night.

The plan: Prime both wheels on Thursday night and two coats of black on one side Friday night, last two coats on the other side on Saturday. Let's see how we go...

Friday, October 12, 2012

Rear Wheel Rims Finished

I haven't stopped doing stuff on the Vogue but things have been slow this week. I finished painting the rear wheel rims and painted (satin black) the inside of the rear wheel arches. I have yet to put the rear wheels back on the car and remove the front ones for preparation and painting.

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Rear Wheel Rims Outside Edge Done

Small steps I know.
I managed to get two coats of glossy black on the outside of both rear wheel rims last night.
According to the spray can you can recoat after one hour but before two hours - or wait 24 hours. I recoated after 1 hour and it appeared to work well.

I carted the wheels inside in front of the space heater for 1/2 hour before spraying (then took them outside to spray) as it was getting cold outside. It was clever of me (not!) to figure out that I could mask up two wheels at once just by using more newspaper and tape.

Monday, October 8, 2012

Preparing and Painting Wheel Rims

I had collected some prices on getting the wheel rims on the Vogue restored professionally but it hasn't worked out to be very convenient. So, in between the rain showers this weekend I managed to get the two rear wheels of the Vogue wire brushed, sanded and rust inhibited (where required). I also did the spare which I won't carry but at least will be available should I get totally stranded and it has to be bought to me.

No wheels again. I'm hoping I get enough time to prepare and paint under the wheel arches. It would look a lot better.

On Sunday afternoon there was a couple of hours without rain and I got all three wheels primed.
The tools.

This one was first.

And this one just got primed. I won't be keeping the tyres but it has to look OK for a little while - hence the masking tape but not-so-careful line. I did the insides as well.

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Programming the Vogue

The motor controller in the Vogue is made by a German company called Lenze. They offer a free programmer that runs on a PC called Global Drive Control or GDC Easy. It has some limits to functionality, mainly that it can not be used to visualise the entire configuration. There is no limit to what you can actually do - just how you view it. I would LOVE the full blown GDC (Lenze, FCR - anyone?) but it's a tad expensive for a non-factory application like this. GDC also lets you change most parameters without loading the whole configuration so you can play with values quickly and easily and note the results immediately. In many cases you must disable the controller to change a parameters but that means just switching the Forward/Neutral/Reverse switch on the dash to Neutral in my case.

I use Laurel's old Thinkpad T40 for general Vogue programming. I have the dashboard software development system, GDC and a simple serial terminal program on this laptop for recording the dashboard output (if I decide to log a trip). Unfortunately it's battery isn't so healthy (kind of ironic for an EV tool), only being good for about 40-50 minutes so I need to attend to that.

Here, the Vogue is on axle stands while I fiddle with some live parameters.


Monday, September 17, 2012

Rear Passenger Door Liner Installed

I installed most of the clips on the back of the door liner (I left the two centre bottom clips off as it doesn't need them) then cut small nicks in some plastic sheet and attached it to the door liner clips.

Then I assembled the rear door inside handle, lock rods and clips - I am not sure what I would have done if I didn't have a spare door under the house to refer to (I didn't pull the door internals out, the spray painter did so it was a bit of a puzzle which way to re-assemble the top rod).

This is the spare door under the house.


Then it took about 2 hours of fiddling just to get most of the clips to line up with the holes in the door - but it's finally on! We left about seven of the clips off as the 3 ply is a lot stiffer than the original card that Rootes used and it didn't need them - plus it made it a heap easier to get the liner on.
  View from inside the car.
I'm hoping that the remaining three will be easier.

Humber/Hillman Handbrake Improvement

The handbrake on the Hillman/Humber four cylinder 1960s cars has always impressed me as a simple, reliable system - but it has always had a minor problem that annoyed me. Essentially the working end of the handbrake cable ends with a rod to the right hand side and an unsheathed cable to the left hand side. The end of the outer sleeve attaches to the differential housing in a way that allows the cable to pull the rod toward the unsheathed outer sleeve. The problem is that there is inward pressure on the right hand side, ensuring that it is held more than fully off, and the opposite pressure - pulling on the cable side.
Thats means that it is a comprimise between not having the left hand side grabbing but getting enough handbrake action to move the right hand side a fair distance before it engages.

This matters a lot to an EV where the handbrake is all that will hold the car on a hill - no parking pawl.
My initial idea was to place a metal block under the handbrake extension lever on the right hand side - but then I thought of a simpler modification.

First I used a strong lever (big screwdriver) to wedge the right hand side on as far as it would go.

Then I drilled a hole through the lever where it slid through the diff. housing mounting. (Yes this is a setup picture as I had already inserted the split pin - see next picture).

Then I slid on washers to adjust, and finally inserted a split pin to hold the rod out enough so there was only a small amount of slack.

Now it is possible to take out a lot of the slack in the cable resulting in a shorter stroke of the actual handbrake handle. I took a lot of that slack out following taking this picture. (I know - that diff. housing needs a coat of paint - maybe when I stop jacking it up every second day...)

Friday, September 14, 2012

Speedo Cluster Software Updated

Last night, I did my first software update of the Speedo cluster since it has been in the car.
It was a tiny bit stressful as the programmer I use also erases the boot code in the PIC (uProcessor) so there is a window of time where if something goes wrong, or if I make a mistake, the speedo is "bricked". That would require having to pull the whole lot out to be able to get at the emulator connector on the circuit board inside the speedo housing - lots of work. (I bricked the speedo a number of times during it's software development so it's not beyond me to "get it wrong".) It all went well.
 
The update came about following the speedometer inaccuracy mentioned a couple of posts ago. Woody from the AEVA forums sent me this extra gem of information about tyres.
http://www.carbibles.com/tyre_bible_pg4.html#slr

Another website I found also supported this although it results in slightly different figures.

TRC Calculator
(Link fixed)


The combination of different differential ratio and the 0.96 rolling curcumference correction (from the above articles) completely explains the 67km/h vs 60km/h error - although I'm still perplexed at why anyone would have changed the diff in the first place.

So I have altered the ODO and Trip meter calculations to use the 0.96 compensation but left the speed calculation about 3% high - just by not applying this compensation. It also appears (from the second web link) that the static and dynamic rolling curcumference can change. It moves back to about 0.97 at 60km/h and probably changes more at higher speed - getting closer to calculated value. This of course depends on initial tyre inflation. I don't think I'll go that far but I will measure the static circumference of the Hancook Enfren LRR tyres when I get them using a driveway/chalk rolling test.

Rear Door Liner ready for Installation

I finished gluing the fabric to the rear door liner last night.
We choose to have three 34mm strips of silver, pieced and top stitched. It took of lot of family advice to decide where to place the silver. The top part ends about 20mm under the lowest part of the armrest.

A minor mistake is that I should have inserted the 20 clips first. They go in from behind so that's not a problem but it would have been easier to place them in the correct position for the holes in the door without the fabric on the door liner.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Speedo Inaccuracy Explained (mostly)

The tyres I plan on using are 185/65R13. With the Vogue's 3.89:1 differential ratio, that works out to be 41.48km/h at 1500 RPM. In the speedo software I divide motor RPM by 36 (41.67 from 1500 RPM) and round up to the nearest integer so it should show 42km/h.
I placed the Vogue on axle stands last light and locked the controller's maximum motor speed to 1500 RPM.

I set the PC to monitor various controller variables including actual motor RPM.
Flooring the accelerator gave me 1499.9 RPM on the PC monitor and 42km/h on the speedo in the car.

So all the calibration and calculations are actually correct - so why does it show 67km/h when we are doing 60km/h?

About the only thing left is the diff ratio - but that can't be wrong - can it?
Historically, the Mk3 Vogue sedan was shipped with a 3.89:1 diff. The earlier Mk2 has a 4.22:1 then later in the run changed to 3.89:1 - or so the rumors say.

The 3.89 to 4.22 would make about an 8% difference to speedo ready. My 67 to 60 is around 10 to 11% - but it's close. The current tyres on the car are 175/70R13 which are ever-so-slightly larger than the ones I calibrated for but it's not much (this should slightly counter the different diff.).

Back to diff. ratio. When I bought the Vogue it had been built from three donor cars. We know one of them was a Vogue Sports because I have the boot lid and badge, BUT, the Humber Vogue Sports never shipped as a Mk3 in Australia, so the boot lid is from a Mk2 - might the diff. be as well?
(The Sports did not sell as a Humber in Australia because all Mk3 Humber Vogues were upgraded to the Sports Alloy Head Rapier spec. motor - no need for a Sports.)

I'm very happy with a 4.22:1 final drive ratio - I had even considered chasing one up so that's good.
So a speedo software change is in the works.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Door Liners - last of the major work on Interior

Laurel sewed up the fabric for a door liner on Sunday so I bought some light-weight 6mm foam and, last night, glued it to the rear passenger side door liner. I left about 12mm at the edge with no foam. I also did not place foam under where the wood trim goes at the top.





I left it for a little while then lightly glued the fabric to the foam.

This is the first one so it's a bit experimental. I am not sure I used enough of the spray on glue. I'll see tonight. I don't want the fabric billowing out when I wrap it around and glue it (contact adhesive this time) to the other side of the panel.

Monday, September 10, 2012

Another "Spin" in the Vogue

I drained and re-filled the differential housing on Sunday morning. It wasn't as empty as I feared but when I stuck my pinky in the filler hole it came out with very black oil on it - so I drained it.
After re-filling the diff, I ran the car on axle stands and over the first 30 seconds or so everything quietened down noticably. I hope there is not any long-term damage.

On Sunday afternoon I put a new configuration in the controller - this one has regen and battery-alert-regen-cutout only if you are de-accelerating when the alert goes off. Whoops - no regen. again. I removed one function block - one that stops regen under 1.4km/h, and regen. was back. That was fine, the block was only to conserve power when stopped at lights etc and I can just turn it to neutral.

So William and I grabbed our phones, the Lenze manual and a User Input Keypad/display (stlll not mounted in the cabin but I can plug it into the controller if I have to), and set out. The "trip" was around the very large block formed by four major roads  - about an 8km square. We would never be more than couple of minutes from home (centre of big block) should be get a low voltage alert. The Headways (batteries) give me about 2 minutes of power once I get the alert before I damage any cells.

At the start of the trip we had 1km on the trip meter and 54km range. I hadn't charged it since the 1km trip last weekend. After the first couple of kilometers we felt a bit more confident - regen braking was great and I didn't need the brake pedal except when stopped on a hill. At about the 3km mark the range had dropped to 49km - not good. We kept going and at the end of the hill down one side of the square we were back up to 54km - great. I hadn't touched the brake pedal yet - all our stopping was happening on regen braking. Generally I was getting about 15 Amps into the pack at about 50km/h. Regen worked all the way down to stop with one minor problem - the Vogue always wanted to go BACKWARDS about a meter once we had stopped. Gently holding the acccelerator down a bit stopped this tendency and I turned the enable off (neutral) each time we had to stop for more than a few seconds. I need that function block after all!

On the first leg we stopped at a service station and put 32psi into all tyres. The service station queue to the bowsers was quite long but we ignored it.

We went around about 2 1/2 times then cut through the middle sides streets to visit a relative who lives nearby, then home.

Here are the dash board pictures once we were back in the garage.




The pictures tell it all (almost). I am amazed at the economy given one leg of the square travel speed is 70 to 80km/h. Our range on arriving home was similar after 20km to the value when we left. I attribute this to better tyre pressure - they have been 25psi for previous drives, surface rust on front brake rotors and rear drums finally getting a chance to be rubbed off, and a differential housing with the right quantity of oil in it. It could also be that this was the first drive under normal circumstances and at reasonable speeds. (Of course I could have a massive conceptual bug in the range estimation as well!)
(Later addition. I realised that the real reason for the improved range after this drive was that I "*fanged" it around the block the previous weekend for that one kilometer, with no regen, so the range estimate started out rather pessimistic at the start of our 20km drive.)
*Vogue version of fanged at the moment is still rather tame.

Problems.
  1. The car is noisy. Suspension squeaks and maybe the front wheel bearings need a clean and re-packing.
  2. The speedo and perhaps trip/ODO are inaccurate. The display reads 67km/h when our GPS says 60km/h - so about 10%. Expensive signal generators and frequency meters and still I mucked up. The tyres on the car vs the ones the speedo cluster was calibrated for should have the error the other way. The tyres currently on the car are larger.
  3. I still have a small "thump" on the transition from regen to accelerate.

Minor problems aside, I was extremely happy with the drive and more than happy with wh/km - even with the 10% error. (About 132 wh/km battery to wheel.)