Raffle Time!

It's time for the Topsail Electric Vehicle Annual Raffle!
We have big plans for next year's team, including an all-new conversion and significant updates to our other vehicles, but none of it will be possible without financial support.

We have over $2,100 in total prizes available, including...

Recliner from Hampstead Furniture
iPad Mini.
Ukulele from the Ukulele Academy
Car Detailing and Oil Change at Jeff Gordon Chevrolet
Car Detailing at Stevenson Honda
Oil Change and Car Wash at Wilmington Motor Works
Alignment and Tire Rotation at MS Auto
Massage and Facial from Innis Spa
Fishing Rod from Eastern Outfitters
Video Sunglasses from Surf City Pier
Gift Certificates to numerous restaurants and businesses, including:
Advance Auto, Camino Real, Dunkin Donuts, Englese's, Fuzzy Peach, Highway 55, Jungle Rapids, Long Horn, NY Corner Deli, Pizza Hut and Reel Pizza.

Tickets are $10, or 3 for $25, and may be purchased at the drawing.

The drawing will be held May 28th at 6:00PM in the EV Shop (located behind Topsail High School.

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.

Introducing the Voltswagen!!

We are proud to announce the completion of our latest vehicle, a 1961 VW Bug, the Voltswagen, just in time for Mr. Garrett's 50th birthday!  The car belongs to Mr. Garrett, our former instructor, who was just named Executive Director of the EV Challenge.  In addition to everyday use, he will use this vehicle as a tool for recruiting new schools to participate in the EV Challenge. 

Some students stayed late into the night to get it finished!

The front battery box; charger is underneath.

The rear battery box, on the package shelf.

Plugged in and charging!

She's ready to go!

The Motor, controller and DC/DC converter.

Details of the car are as follows:

44 100 Ah Thundersky Cells
Lithiumate Lite BMS
Elcon PFC 1500 Charger
DCP Raptor 1200A Controller
ADC 9" Motor
Battery heaters
Range:  75 miles projected
Top Speed: Faster than stock
Acceleration: MUCH faster than stock

On the road again!

The battery transplant is now complete and the MR2 is back on the road, thanks to seven long hours of work on Saturday by some dedicated students.  Re-wiring the Orion BMS took a lot of time and patience (and a call to their ever-helpful customer support line), but it is now working to equalize our new battery pack.  There are still some final details to attend to, but now our attention can shift to the Volkswagen and preparing for the EV challenge.  Check out the pictures of our progress.

Drilling out holes for the battery straps.

The front box, ready to go back in!

Moving the bug out of the way, so the MR2 can get on the lift.

Since the new cells are smaller, we need new holes for the battery cables.

The back box is almost finished...

Everything is in place up front.

Another Busy Week in the Shop

This week has been rather hectic in the shop.  We have run some cables and repaired the parking brake in the Volkswagen, and are modifying the motor, coupler and adapter plate to make everything fit.  In the MR2 we have removed the old Thunderskycell and are modifying the battery boxes to accept the smaller, yet more energy dense cells.  We will then have to do a rewire of the Battery Management System (BMS) before the car can get back on the road.

Also, we received a very generous donation this week from one of our sponsors, Atlantic Tool and Die!

David cutting apart the clutch disk to use in the coupler.

Ryan using the shop vacuum to pull cable through the heater channels.

Hunter removing the Thundersky cells from the trunk of the MR2.

Corey and Ryan working on the parking brake in the Bug.

Dillon grinding off the auxiliary output shaft on the motor so it will fit in the back of the VW.

Out with the old...

We have finally removed the old internal combustion engine from the Volkswagen Beetle!  It took much longer than it should have because we had a hidden bolt on the back side of the transmission.  Now it's time to design some battery boxes and get the conversion going.

Success!

New conversion time!

EV 13 with the 1961 Bug before conversion.

Gas tank is out, mock up of  front battery box.

Engine compartment....soon to have 9" motor.

As a going away present for Mr. Garrett, we have decided to convert his 1961 VW Bug.  The car will have specific design parameters to insure the integrity of the 51 year old car.  We are in the early stages now and are careful to make sure the whole process can be done without any cuts be made to the car.  The car will be 144 volt Lithium system, using the old cells from the MR2, which are in a semi depleted state, but should be good for a few more years and a vehicle range of about 50 miles tops. 

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.

Homecoming

Every year at the homecoming game, we get the opportunity to lead the homecoming court around the track during halftime.  This year we had both vehicles and were announced over the public address system in front of a crowd of over 2500 people.  Sometimes exposure like this is invaluable.  It is the first time younger kids or visitors get to see the EV's in action.  Hopefully we are planting the seeds for the future.  Very proud to be associated with the THE EV program and the students that help make it possible each year.

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.  

Battery re-installation

After a two months of research and design.  Careful consideration has been put into the BMS system and wiring of the unit and and batteries.  We top balanced the 48 cells and let them stay wired in parallel over the last two months.  Now we are prepared to re-install the batteries and label them for the wiring of the Orion BMS.  We cleaned each cell, labelled them and installed them back into the battery boxes in the correct orientation.  Our next step is to carefully wire the harnesses for the BMS.

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.

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

Water Miser Vent Caps

Since the "speed caps" on our US Batteries had begun to crack and fail, we decided to get new standard type vent caps.  EV Team member, Matt, did a bit of research and ran across a company called Flow Systems.  They offer a better vent cap that reduces watering, hydrogen venting, prolongs battery life and keeps valuable electrolyte in the cells by using a hydrophobic cindered disc to return all water and acid droplets back into the cells.  We installed the caps today and are looking forward to the minimal maintenance to come.

Synkromotive controller installed in MR2

We finally got around to removing the Raptor 1200A and installing the Synkromotive 900A in the MR2.  The Raptor has served us well over the last 9 years, making appearances in three different installs.  It is a very powerful controller, but that is all, it does not allow for programming or data logging.  The Synkromotive controller has been working flawlessly in our Ranger for over a year, so we decided to install one in the MR2 as well.

  Initial observations are the MR2 with the Synkro has a tad bit less acceleration.  On the plus side, gone is the horrible accelerator delay we had with the Raptor.  This issue reared its' ugly head in Auto Cross events where you had to press early on the pedal in anticipation of the power surge....not fun.

  Now to drive the MR2 and data log the results.  The data logging will really help us to track the performance of our Lithium pack as well.

Battery boxes and Lithiums

We had battery boxes fabricated by Billy Vaughn at Wilmington Sheet Metal and they fit perfectly!  We will now take on the task of mounting the boxes and wiring the 48 batteries in series.  The other technical issue is providing a means to secure the batteries once inside the boxes.  Always something to do...