11 Time Champions

This weekend we competed at the EV Challenge at NCCAR in Garysburg, NC.  We are pleased to announce some excellent results.  Without further ado:

 

Team results:

1st Place Overall, Car Class

1st Place Overall, Truck Class

1st Place Overall, STEM Cycle

1st Place School Initiative

2nd Place, Vehicle Design, Truck Class

2nd Place, Vehicle Design, STEM Cycle

Individual (or partner) events:

1st place, Troubleshooting: Ryan Latronico and Justin Poplaski

1st place, Oratorical: Katiana Vazquez and Tyler King

1st Place, Range (Car): Zac Bender and Justin Poplaski

1st Place, Jeopardy, Ben Nazelrod and Justin Poplaski

1st Place, Range (Truck): Grant Simme and Weston Hicks

1st Place, Autocross (Truck): Ben Nazelrod

1st Place, Acceleration (STEM Cycle): Brandon Whaley

1st Place, Range (STEM Cycle): Brandon Whaley

1st Place, Autocross (STEM Cycle): Roberto Gonzalez

2nd Place, Autocross (Car): Ryan Latronico  (A very consistent and fast performance!)

2nd Place, Acceleration (Truck): Logan Moore

2nd Place, Troubleshooting: Weston Hicks and Domenick DiBiase

3rd Place, Acceleration (Car): Katiana Vazquez

3rd Place, Jeopardy: Logan Moore and Tyler King

3rd Place, Oratorical: Grant Simme and Zac Bender

 

Our small-scale STEM Cycle was completed just in time to compete!

Ready for the NEAT Rally

Our vehicles are loaded up and on their way to the NEAT Rally in Northampton County, NC, thanks to the transportation graciously donated by Blue Water Motorsports.  We also received generous donations from H.H. Gregg, Food Lion, Harris Teeter and Lowes Foods.

A special thanks to Greg, Roy, and all the folks at Blue Water Motorsports.

 We have installed a new electric heating system in our truck that should keep the windows frost-free this fall.

Brandon extracting the blower motor from a donor truck.

 One final step was to install the J1772 charging port on the car, which works with the charging station donated by Schneider Electric.

The port is cleverly hidden in the vent; you can use a regular household outlet with the plug under the fuel door.

The EVlink charging station, powered on and charging the MR2.

Topsail EV on TV

Jayne Dees from WWAY TV 3 visited the EV Garage today to report on our program and our trip to the EV Challenge.  Several students and Mr. Jeffcoat spent their lunch hour showing her around the shop and sharing the experience and excitement of the program.  To watch the video, click here.

10 Time Champions!

We competed in the EV Challenge this weekend (April 12-14), winning First Place Overall for the 10^th consecutive year. The car finished first place overall, and the truck won second place overall.  Also, Steve Garrett was named the new Executive Director of the EV Challenge.

Detailed Results are as follows:

1^st Place Overall, 1991 Toyota MR2

2^nd Place Overall, 2001 Ford Ranger

1^st Place, Modifided Class

1^st Place, Truck Class

1^st Place, School Initiative

1^st Place, Troubleshooting

1^st Place, Jeopardy, Truck Team

2^nd Place, Jeopardy, Car Team

1^st Place, Oral Presentation, Car team

2^nd Place, Oral Presentation, Truck Team

1^st Place, Vehicle Design, Modified Class

2^nd Place, Vehicle Design, Truck Class

1^st Place, Autocross, Truck Class

2^nd Place, Autocross, Modified Class

1^st Place, Range, Modified Class

1^st Place, Range, Truck Class

2^nd Place, Acceleration, Truck Class

3^rd Place, Acceleration, Modified Class

A VERY special thanks to Ron Latronico and Kenny Sessions for towing our vehicles to the event!

That's a BIG trophy!

Coupler, Battery Boxes, and Charger

The past two weeks have been very busy in the EV shop, as we are working on all three vehicles at the same time.  We still have much to do, but are on track to finish in time for the EV Challenge next month.

The coupler to mate the electric motor with the transmission has been machined by Mr. Sholar at Cape Fear Community College.  The next step is to install the motor.

The new coupler

Thank-you cake.

Also, the battery boxes and heaters are being installed in the Volkswagen.  Next, we will install the cells and wire everything up.

Bolting in the rear battery box.

Matt wiring the battery heaters.

With the Ranger, we have mounted the new charger.  It will be back on the road as soon as the controller is repaired.

Brady securing the charger.

Raffle ticket sales at Hampstead Community Center

Today, several EV13 Team members sold tickets at the Hampstead Women's Clubs annual Craft Fair in the Hampstead Community Center.  The event was held from 8-1 and there were several hundred attendees throughout the day.  The day was a success with Brady and Ryan hitting their goal of 25 tickets sold!  That makes for four of ten members reaching their sales goal!  We hope to raise $2500 with the raffle so we can purchase a new set of Lithium cells for the MR2.

Featured in NC State Alumni Blog!

Our instructor was contacted by the NC State Alumni Association recently about doing a story on him and the Topsail EV program since he is an Alumnus of NC State. Click on the  Red and White for Life blog. banner above to read the story.


Still selling raffle tickets, so if you are interested in purchasing, hit us up on here by clicking on the "donate" button and filling in your information.
  Thanks

Raffle Ticket sales at Advance Auto

Cold day at Advance Auto today, but a few of the THS EV Team showed up bright and early at 8:00 to display the vehicles and sell raffle tickets.  We sold a total of 32 tickets  in a short period of time.  Next week, we will be at the Hampstead Community Center at the annual Hampstead Women's Club Holiday Craft Fair from 8:00-1:00.

EV Raffle time!! $2500 in prizes!

The Topsail EV Team is holding their annual Fall EV Raffle, and this year is better than ever! Over $2500 in prizes and a 1 in 8 chance of winning. If you win a smaller prize, you still get your name put back in for the Grand Prize drawing of an iPad 2. We will have an EV open house on the day of the drawing, December 20th at 5:30pm at the EV shop behind Topsail High School.


You u can buy a ticket from one of the EV students. The price is one for $10 or three for $25.
 Thanks for your support.
*PRIZES*
IPad 2-$400.00
Indo Jax Surf School-Week-long Morning Surf Camp $300.00
Lyons Sushi Party $250.00
2- Golds Gym 3 Month Memberships  $360.00
Bugs Etc. House Extermination Service $150.00
Music Loft Gift Card $100.00
Olde Point Golf Round of Golf for 2 Players $84.00
Finesse Carpet Cleaning $75.00
2- Golds Gym 1 Month Memberships $120.00
Ohana Paddle Sports 4 Hour Board Rental and 1 Hour Lesson $60.00
Napa Auto Parts Socket Set $50.00
Autozone Car wash bucket kit $30.00
Advance Auto Parts Car wash bucket kit $30.00
Belvedere Country Club Round of Golf $30.00
Shuckers Oyster Bar Gift Card $25.00
Shuckers Oyster Bar Gift Card $25.00
5- O'Leary's Automotive Repair Gift Certificates $125.00
Daddy Macs Gift Certificate $25.00
4- Topsail Greens Round of Golf $88.00
Finkelstein's Gift Card $20.00
El Cerro Grande Gift Card $20.00
Max's Pizza Large Pizza $15.00
2- 2 Guys Grille Gift Certificates $20.00
Hibachi To Go Gift Card $10.00
South End Surf Shop Gift Card $10.00
3- Bagel Bakery Gift Certificates $15.00
Yozio Gift Certificate $5.00

16th annual NEAT EV Rally Champions!



We arrived in style thanks to Larry Hall



Hunter handling the track

Davis make a first place run

Never let Shelby take a "fun run" on the autocross track.......

Competing in EV Jeopary for the Odyssey event

The guys hustling in the Pit Crew event

Another victorious event for THS EV!

Congratulations to the Topsail Electric Vehicle Team for their victories at the 16th annual NEAT EV Rally this past weekend at the NCCAR test track facility in Roanoke Rapids, NC.  An amazing weekend with an amazing group of students. We were recognized as being the best organized and most motivated group there! The team has accumulated 162 trophies in 13 years of competition.
The team won the following trophies:
1st Overall
1st Autocross: Modified Class
1st Range: Modified Class
1st Range: Truck Class
2nd Troubleshooting
2nd Pit Crew
2nd Acceleration: Modified Class
2nd Acceleration: Truck Class
2nd Autocross: Truck Class
3rd EV Jeopardy

CFCC Auto Body demonstration

We had a guest speaker today from the CFCC Paint and Auto Body program.  Aimee Abreya stopped in to speak about and promote her program at CFCC for high school students who would like the opportunity to take the classes while still in high school for dual enrollment.  She also brought a very expensive paint booth simulator to allow students to practice painting in a virtual world!  The simulator was an awesome experience for several students who braved the virtual helmet and tried their skills at painting virtual body panels.  Every experience like this is a great opportunity for students to see what is available as a career.  We always need a vehicle painted when we do a conversion, so this would really help us out as well.

Display at Wilmington Christian Academy

We have a unique opportunity to be a mentor to a new EV Club being created at Wilmington Christian Academy.  The instructor visited our class for about two hours this week to get a better picture of what is involved in supporting an Electric Vehicle conversion club.  We had gobs of information and were able to show our shop and classroom area, plus we had advice on when to hold the meetings as well. 

  We were then invited to help promote their program at the school during their Fall Carnival fundraiser.  We drove both vehicles into Wilmington to their site and set up for display.  Most everyone was very impressed by the Topsail EV Team and their knowledge of the vehicles.  Hopefully the WCA club will make it to the EV Challenge final event this year with a newly converted car.

Spot Festival display

Once again, the Topsail Electric Vehicles were on display at the largest Festival in Hampstead each year, the Spot Festival.  A Spot is a fish that is caught off our local waters, and each year thousands of visitors come to enjoy music, fun and most of all, the delicious Spot dinner.  The event is a local fundraiser for the schools and fire departments, so everyone comes out to support the community.
  We had a good showing as usual and fielded plenty of questions about the vehicles.  The team did an excellent job as always.  The festival is usually our first major display and the students were ready for the task.  We get the same questions year after year, but we have noticed that the general public is becoming more aware of electric and hybrid vehicles. This is a good sign, and it also helps that gas prices are pretty high right now, making more people think about alternative fuel sources.

Battery Heaters!

    We finally got around to installing battery heaters in the truck battery boxes today.  The heaters are a rubber pad that consumes .58 Amps at 120 Volts and produces 70 Watts of power.  We tested them first and found they have an internal thermistor that opens the circuit at around 115 degrees and closes it back when the temperature falls to below 100.  The pads are very flat and we were able to install eleven of them under our 16 Trojan T-145 batteries.  We monitored a pad under a 12 volt battery we have for 6 hours and found that during that time, the electrolyte rose to about 100 degrees.  We should have better results when they are in the insulated boxes and all the batteries are grouped together. The process took most of the day and also allowed the new EV 13 team the opportunity to learn how to wire a parallel circuit, crimp wires and check the specific gravity of the cell electrolyte.  The install was completed and the heaters work great.  It takes quite a while to heat the cells, but it will be a welcome addition when cold weather hits. Kudos to the new team that showed up to perform the work on a teacher workday!


   On a side note, we have not had to water the cells for over 6 months because of the Water Miser Vent Caps from Flow Systems.  The caps have done an exceptional job and we only had to top off the cell levels slightly, using only a half gallon for 16 cells.  

The BMS wiring has begun!

Well, it is finally time to begin the daunting task of wiring the Orion BMS in the MR2.  We took a while to figure out exactly how the wiring would have to be done including the routing of the wires from each cell back to the BMS.  Thanks to the excellent customer support of Andrew at Orion, he approved our wiring diagram, and away we went.
    The first hurdle was that the front battery box would have to be wired prior to installing into the car.  To accomplish this, we had to pre-wire it with a separate harness that could be plugged up when the box was back in the car.  In the pictures, you can see the students crimping each connector for the primary harness.  We are almost ready to wire the BMS harnesses.  What is really nice about this experience is how the students have stepped up to learn about the system and how the wiring process should be staged for completion.  After the wiring is complete, we will have a chance to test the harnesses prior to plugging them into the BMS.  Stay in tune, there is more to come!

Our BMS has arrived!

Our BMS arrived last Friday and needless to say, we are overwhelmed.  The MR2 has to be totally rewired top to bottom to accomodate the new component.  The BMS will monitor all cells during charge and under driving conditions, giving us real time analysis of the Lithium batteries.  This technology will help preserve the lifespan batteries and help to keep them a balanced set.  The performance of the MR2 should be more consistent and we will have the opportunity to data  log our charge and discharge cycles.  Two students are working on a program that will create an interface that incorporates both the Synkromotive controller and the BMS parameters on the same in dash display.
  Today, we began removing all of the Thundersky batteries so we can top balance the entire set in parallel.  By doing this, we will have a balanced pack, and the BMS will have an easier job for the initial few charge cycles.

Brand used transmission

We developed a noise in our MR2 transmission and ordered one from a MR2 message board member in Texas.  We decided to remove the old one after the NEAT Rally.  When we returned, we removed the motor and transmission, cleaned up the new one and replaced the old.  To our dismay, the "new" one had the same sound.  After consulting with our "go to" mechanic, he agreed  that it was one of two things.  Either it had the same issue as the old one, or it is a noise that is inherent to the MR2 transmission.  Well, we decided to replace the "new" one with the old tranny and take the "new" one apart to see what we could find.  Stay tuned....We will take it apart soon and let you know what we find.  On a side note, we are really good at removing the motor and transmission, having done so about 12 times in the past month!

NEAT EV Rally results

The Topsail Electric Vehicle Team travelled to the 17th annual NEAT EV Rally in Northampton County this past weekend at the NCCAR facility. The students competed in seven events and tied for first place overall in the competition. The team had many compliments for their attitude and work ethic. They represented Topsail High and Pender County with class and dignity...as always. One instructor even wanted to take Ryan Mowrey back with him to show his students how to act!  The weather cooperated for the most part, and the vehicles performed very well.  Our truck, nursing a battery with a bad cell was only able to manage 12 laps of the NCCAR 2 mile track.  The Toyota MR2 drove 56 miles in the range and could have travelled another 25 miles but had won the event.  The lithium batteries make a huge difference in the range and performance of the car. 
  We would like to congratulate the NEAT team for their results and thank them and their instructor Thomas Pope, along with Harold Miller, for putting on a fine event.  We look forward to next year!  We will practice the pit crew before the event this time.

The results were as follows:
First overall
Acceleration: First Ranger
Acceleration: First MR2
Range: Second Ranger
Range: First MR2
Design: First MR2
Autocross: First Ranger
Autocross: First MR2
Jeopardy competition: Second

Battery problem!

On a routine check of the batteries in the truck, we discovered a slight problem.  The students had learned how to use a refractometer to check the specific gravity of the lead acid cells to determine the state of each cell in comparison to the rest of the pack.  The results found the 14 month old US Battery US145xc batteries were within a few tenths of each other except for one cell was considerably lower than the rest.  Upon checking it out further, we noticed the water level was lower as well, even though we had topped them off the day before.  We also noticed that there was a considerable amount of oxidation underneath the battery box below where the battery in question was.

  We removed the battery to find that it had been leaking around the side seal near the top of the battery.  We contacted Fred Wehmeyer at US Batteries and he suggested we try to fix the leak by melting the side where the seal was broken, and if that did not work, he would try to get the battery replaced under warranty since it had been leaking since the day we installed them.  The fix did not work, so Fred contacted Larry at Battery Specialists in Greenville, SC, a distributor, and arranged for us to have the battery replaced.  Larry assured us that we would have the battery before our event on November 4th!  Stay tuned.