Auranthetic Orange

New Electric Toy

2009-11-15T21:44:00.000-08:00

The Prius arrives at it's new home. With help from Dave and the VEVA trailer. It was procured for a very low price because of a transaxle that had been inadvertently run dry.

When I took off the oil pan, this is what I found:

Some things that should not be beautiful are really beautiful...They are a symbol of dark forces at work... Like the steel filings from a transaxle sump magnet.

Soon I will replace the transaxle. You can follow the progress here: Orange4boy's Rescue and Revival of a 2003 Prius

2009-09-21T14:40:00.000-07:00

Not remotely related to the Auranthetics (unless you count the fact that both the stereo and the auranthetics rock) is my attempt to repair the stereo from my Previa. This is my crash course in electronics. Something I have always wanted to learn since I started to become involved in electric vehicles.

Here is the main power board. Bulged cap beside the torroid is a 4700uf 16v rubycon series px 12.5mm x 25mm. There is just about 1mm on each side of it. Above the mofset there is enough room to put something bigger and run wires down to the original mounting holes but I'm not sure that is a good idea. On the right, you can see my temporary solution to the replacement of the two rubycon 680uf 16v wxa series 10mm x 10mm. I have yet to find something close. The only close things I found were 10 x 12.5mm 680s which may just barely fit. I did find some 12.5 x 30mm 4700uf 16v units on ebay but as a lot of 150. I may email the seller for a deal on a couple and see if he bites.

Each of these caps have a low ripple current rating and high impedance probably because they are so small. Everything I have found close is much better in both these areas. So i may see some improvement when I'm done.

The CD player takes up 90% of this space with a little left over by the heat sink.

I popped one of the bulged 680uf back in for the photo. It's the black one just below the brown nichicon. the plastic cover is half melted off.

This is the board side where the 680's are from so you can see they are parallel.

Here is my temporary solution for the 2 680's. One 2200 of better quality. The stereo works much better now but the big bass gets clipped (plus noise) when you turn it up too much. I think this has to do with the 4700uf which is also bulged.

That's my space issue... but just above it there's lots of room to put one sideways.

one more view.

More Misleading Economists

2009-04-02T13:29:00.000-07:00

I recently read an article in Hybrid Cars which includes an interview with Xavier Mosquet, a co- author of a recent report by the Boston Consulting Group called "The Comeback of the Electric Car" They paint a gloomy picture to consumers about the hidden costs of electric cars. The group was part of an auto task force advising President Obama on the auto manufactures bail out. The report is a sloppy bit of work and highly biased towards ICE cars due to some glaring omissions.

1)The true costs of oil are not represented which make the report highly skewed. Oil is highly subsidized so the title is very misleading. They base their report on the pump costs alone. Add in a few wars for oil and the picture would be very different.

2) The costs of ownership do not include service costs which are quite high for ICE vehicles and would be substantially lower for an electric car. Also resale values for an electric car would be higher due to the longevity of electric motors.

3) Cheaper batteries are coming and this report only covers Lithium Ion and at an inflated price. Large scale NiMH batteries, as in the EV1 gen2 and RAV4, would be much cheaper, and actually available, if only Cobasis (majority owned by Chevron) would licence the technology or at least sell the batteries on the open market. Why not make the cost of batteries a variable in the graphs like the costs of different ICE technologies? Hmmm?

Someone didn't do their homework.

A shoddy report at best, anti-electric propaganda at worst.

Cry Baby

2009-03-09T14:17:00.000-07:00

Is it just me or does the European version of the Volt perfectly mirror the winging, whining, sad sack GM executives pleading to be bailed out?

Honestly, who designs this crap?

All Electric Snow Blowing Video

2009-02-16T08:58:00.000-08:00

Shot this while clearing my driveway. There is a part in the middle where my belt slips (later fixed) RoboTrak is unstoppable!

Introducing Robotrak: The Remote Control Tractor

2009-02-11T17:36:00.000-08:00

Robotrak has a new home! And what, or whom, you ask, is Robotrak? Well let me tell you. It's a short story and it begins thusly....

First, the earth cooled... OK, OK, I'll skip that part.

So, on to the story at hand... It starts with the snow:

Where I live, on a small island off the wet coast of BC, precariously close to the 2010 winter scams, we usually get 6 inches of wet snow tops. When It snows our precariously (yes i like that word) steep driveway becomes a luge track. A luge track without banked turns.

Normally, with our old 6" snows we could get by driving the driveway with chains and shovelling the worst parts. This would last for a few days, a week tops. Our driveway is about 1000 feet long, winding down from the main road, across the creek at the bottom, past our house and up the other side of the valley about another 500 feet up to my parent's house

Recent years has brought more and more snow and not the wet variety. This year we got 12" then another 12", then when we thought it was all over we got another 12" followed by another 6". Then it started to rain and rain and rain and rain then it froze. You get the picture. Shovelling roofs, digging out the Previa from behind 4 foot snow walls, etc. You know, a nice light Ontario winter, in BC. Now we are in siege mode. We have to hike in, uphill both ways carrying our provisions on our backs.

We have no plow, or any other large scale method of moving snow. Remember, this is Vancouver, where a snow blower is someone who does a lot of coke.

In a moment of desperation we fitted my parent's 4WD Tercell with chains on all four wheels and started down the hill from my parent's into 22" of wet snow. One giant snow wedge later, the Tercell was stuck with it's wheels hanging limp at it's sides. FAIL! On to plan B. Wait, there is no plan B? We need a plan B.

I started looking for a snow blower, hoping to find a solution to our little problem but everyone was sold out and craigslist was full of people trying to cash in selling junk for way too much money. "Wait, here's one in Chelan... where the hell is Chelan?"

On one of my searches I came upon a vintage Elec-Trak with a snow blower attachment and I knew I had found my plan B. Problem was it was in Vermont. Much searching came up empty until I tried the Vancouver Electric Vehicle Association. I had seen an Elec-Trak at the last VEVA show and had been impressed with the solidity, size and weight of these buggers. Made in the late sixties to the early eighties by General Electric, they have six deep cycle batteries stowed away giving about 4 acres of mowing power! The gentleman showing his Elec-Track was very helpful and complimentary about my Auranthetics. This was in the summer of 08.

I sent out my request on the VEVA email list and I got a reply from a Dave Kohen, who turned out to be the same guy who was at the show. He had an Elec-Trak that was looking for a new home...but there was one problem: It was remote control. Wha? Wait, this is a problem...how? The ET was converted to remote control by another member, an electrical engineer, naturally, who liked to mow his lawn from his porch. He even had a video camera hooked up so he could mow from indoors in inclement weather. The member had moved to a condo so he had no more lawn to mow. Alas, the video attachment is no longer with the vehicle but it's still all there. AND IT'S ORANGE! It was obviously meant to be.

I went to look at it at Dave's place. Dave has several Elec-Traks and some super cool projects like a micro hydro power plant and a suspension bridge. We negotiated a deal and I anxiously awaited delivery of the Robotrak. About a week later it arrived

So I fabricated a plow, and bought a vintage snow blower attachment... from Nebraska... That's another story though. I've made a new battery box, an auxiliary power pack and installed a set of heated, yes heated Volvo seats I had sitting in storage.

Robotrak is fitting in nicely in her new home as a multi task mower, plower, driveway maintainer, log skidder, trailer tower and general electric doitall.

This is Robotrak in happier times and warmer climes with it's previous owner.

This is the shot of the new battery box. (note the joystick control and lack of steering wheel)

And here it is carrying it's first commercial delivery of glass. The plow has a crazy carpet attached to act as a low friction surface for better plowing.

Do It With Electrons Not Hydrocarbons

2009-01-14T11:52:00.000-08:00

This is how it's done. A little unassuming vintage car converted to electric stomps on corvettes and big block hot rods.

One quick little Datsun

The Money Shot

2008-09-30T19:34:00.001-07:00

Finally had a chance to shoot the bikes together. Thanks to a good friend who volunteered her garden and her time to help.

Thanks, Alison

Aerodynamic flow simulations (aero nerd heaven)

2008-09-01T00:19:00.000-07:00

Dream mod for my Previa is a boat tail. I prepared a few videos to see if the flow works out. This is from a free program called Flow Illustrator.

The flow is the most stable on the boat tail version and wake and mixing are the smallest.

This view shows a deflector wing and belly pan. Too much mixing and unstable wake behind the wing.

Here is the stock simulation. Note the turbulent mixing under the van as well as the wavy, unstable large wake.

My next major project for the Previa will be an under belly pan.

Don'tcha just love the interwebs?

Our Neighbour

2008-08-24T13:46:00.000-07:00

This is our resident barred owl. Not terribly concerned about humans apparently. She can be seen afternoons and evenings in the spring and summer perched near one of the ponds waiting for salamanders to surface. Sometimes you can hear her young fuzzy ones hissing hungily, deeper in the woods. The behbehs are harder to spot and very difficult to photograph. There are usually two behbehs waiting for their poor overworked mom to feed them. Often the mother is set upon by chipping birds who dive at her on her perch, sometimes literally colliding with her in a vain attempt to scare her away. Squawking crows then often join in on the harassment. If she swoops down and catches something, the crows will chase her and try to steal her prey. The crows and chipping birds often alert us of the owl's presence.

One evening I heard an awful desperate squawking which abruptly ended after a few seconds. It was disturbing because I was not able to identify what creature was making the sounds. On Katie's walk that evening we discovered the grizzly explanation. Exactly centred between the two large hollow cedar stumps that straddle the driveway, near the bridge, we came across a freshly severed crow's head. Well, the beak and half the head, still wet with scarlet blood droplets.

I guess she had had enough. We have not heard the crows squawking after her since.

Creeeepy.

The Roadrunner

2008-08-11T23:46:00.000-07:00

My honey on a practice run with me following (and filming) on my bike.

What the largest automobile manufacturer in the world can't do on the ground...

2008-08-08T11:38:00.000-07:00

Electra Flyer

What's this? No suit, No tie? No multi billion dollar Corporation?

And no flight suit either.

Q: How Many Dolts Does It Take To Screw Up A Volt ?

2008-08-07T10:10:00.000-07:00

A: General Motors

The General Motors guide to making an electric car that won't sell.

1: Make it UGLY

2: Make people wait way too long so they get bored of it.

3: Make videos of it driving 2mph in a cul-de-sac and call that promotion.

4: Sell the battery technology that got the EV1-genII a range of 150 miles. Then claim that there is no battery available to use in the Volt.

5: Use negative suggestion in your advertising "Don't forget to recharge the car"

6: Don't sell it, lease it.

7: Wait for gas prices to drop, then don't make it some more.

Too Much Fun

2008-08-06T23:18:00.000-07:00

Riding a lot this summer now that Arturo has the right gearing. I now have an 8 tooth front sprocket and a 60 tooth rear. The new Scott 2 hp motor runs at a higher rpm now that it's got 24v coursing through it's copper veins. That tiny sprocket sure is noisy though. It's super torquey and accelerates like mad. I get stopped at least once every trip by people fascinated by it.

My honey has been taking Stella to work regularly and loving it. She found it a little terrifying at first but was determined to ride. Now she's hooked. When we go out together we turn more heads than a Ferrari on fire. It takes some getting used to. Being the focus of a car full of screaming, pointing kids is not something I had ever imagined.

The Economist's opinion on electric vehicles: WRONG!

2008-07-03T00:25:00.000-07:00

Perhaps The Economist should check it's math.

In the Economist's opinion this electric vehicle:

Is more like this electric vehicle

and less like this gas powered vehicle

A friend who is also interested in electric cars told me about a special report on the future of energy in the "venerable" Economist magazine. I scoffed, and told him that I wouldn't trust anything written in that or any mainstream media about electric cars.

I got a chance to peruse that article yesterday and was unpleasantly unsurprised by the opinion piece which acts as an introduction to the special report. "Battery-powered cars, meanwhile, are slightly comic: more like milk-floats than Maseratis."

The section of the article on electric vehicles was actually quite accurate but it seems from this quote that the anonymous author-bot did not actually read It's own article or any thing about current electric vehicles. Hilarious because the Tesla (which is mentioned in the report) runs circles around any Maserati you might care to bring on. Apparently The Economist does not have a high opinion of itself.

By the way,

Maserati: 19.2mpg 0-60: 5.6 seconds

Tesla: 200mpg* 0-60: 3.2 seconds

Milk float: 300qpm** 0-60: never

*calculated from kwh

**quarts per mile

Baby's Got a Brand New Electric Motor Cooling Fan and Cover.

2008-06-30T10:06:00.000-07:00

Ain't the web grand? I did a little googling for info on running PMDC motors on higher voltages (since the motor I found was made for 12V and the bike is 24) and found some excellent advice from a motor rebuilder at Hi-torque Electric. He recommended advancing the brushes and adding a cooling fan. I had already thought of making a new cap for the brush end of the motor because the original is not vented and I've been itching to do some custom metal fabrication.

Before:

After:

Since fabbing the new cover, I've installed a 12V fan which I salvaged from my old Mac G3 power supply. There are two fans in that supply, a 3", 200ma and a 4.5" .44a. I installed the smaller fan first but I am planning a bigger diameter cover for the bigger fan that will extend past the brush holder and over the motor for even more "sensflow" cooling action.

As the kids say: "Sweeeeet"

The Children of The rEVolution

2008-06-09T21:25:00.000-07:00

Finally found a new motor for #12. I was going to try to rewind the original KDB if I couldn't find a replacement but I just picked one up today.

A Scott 12v 1 hp exactly the same motor style as a KDB. They are almost identical in appearance with no extra flanges/fins to deal with. I have been waiting for one to come up on EBAY as I don't have the budget for a $535 unit from one of the EV suppliers. I googled the 2 hp Scott part number and got a hit in Vancouver for 75$. There was a web page specials list with a few Scott motors all for cheap. When I phoned they had sold the last 2hp model 4BC2850 but still had a 12v 1hp model 4BC01368 in stock. It seemed too good to be true, though, and sure enough when it came to the details they said they could only sell to a distributor. DANG! I then dropped in to Drake Electric who were very helpful earlier in supplying me with rewinding supplies and advice and thankfully they agreed to order it for me plus $10 markup for a total of $85! I was so happy, I gave them $100 and still got a smoking deal. Thanks Greg!

Greg was furiously rebuilding a motor on his day off for a BC ferry contractor. If the ferry does not run they get fined $40,000 so I guess paying through the nose for a rush job just ain't no thang.

I realize the voltage is wrong but the motor should still work at 24v as long as I don't push it too hard. Or since I don't have batteries yet I could get a couple of T-105 6Vs and practically double my range battery life (with a little judicious rewiring)

Very soon we should be cruising side by side Auranthetic style!

Max Head Room

2008-06-08T18:43:00.000-07:00

Top hat optional.

The ghost of Gerry Garcia approves.

Matching leather required.

Just as a car interior should look.

Just got back from the VEVA REV show. My only regret is that I did not drive there on electric power. I brought the Charger in the back of the van. Next year electric all the way for sure.

The highlight for me would have to be driving the 1912 Detroit electric car which cost about $2000 new in 1912. Roughly $350 000 in today's dollars. It's still in original condition and runs perfectly. The original batteries were nickel-iron, very expensive, very heavy but durable and still hold a charge today but not enough for any distance so newer batteries now run it. The steering is by tiller! Push to go right pull for left. Charming to drive and the only noise it makes is the squeaking rubber of the wheels. Who could resist those leather seats?

Global and the CBC were there as well as some news papers so we will have to wait and see how much air time they give it.

It was great to see all the rides there and the e-bike guys were busy all day showing off their wares and giving demo rides.

Please go and sign the petition to mandate ZEVs in Canada. It's 100 years late!

On The Road

2008-05-25T13:43:00.000-07:00

# 926 is licenced!

I've been in the middle of a pile of red tape trying to get my two bikes registered here in BC. As seems to be the case in all dealings with the govmint, (as with life) everyone tells you something different and the printed material has conflicting information in it.

ICBC, our provincial insurance corporation has done a search but found neither bike registered although one clerk told me that other Chargers were registered in BC in 1974.

I had to prepare a "statutory declaration" stating where I got the bike, how much I paid etc. and have it notarized. I did this for both bikes and got a package deal of $25. Nice. Shopping around paid off here because everywhere else was charging around $40 each.

The VIN on the bike is shorter than the normal VIN here but vintage motorcycles are exempt from getting a new 17 digit VIN.

The literature states that all motorcycles with no history of registration need to be inspected. The inspector at the independent designated inspection facility, told me that motorcycles older than 15 years do not require inspection. He said that this happened to one of his customers who paid to have his vintage bike inspected and then found out later it wasn't required. I called registration support who confirmed, "inspection required". I decided to try to register without the inspection and after the agent did some computer fiddling with the cc category, bingo! PLATES!!!1!

Going on my first spin today!

If anyone in BC wants advice on registering one of these bikes in BC feel free to contact me here.

Toasted KDB

2008-05-08T17:10:00.000-07:00

Could be a good anchor for my sailboat.

I'm going to try to re-wind this. I'm getting 8 lbs of 17ga wire rated at 200 degrees C. the winding pattern looks kind of crazy so I hope I can figure it out.

Wish me luck.

Wax on... wax off. Wax on... wax off.

2008-05-04T10:54:00.000-07:00

This is my favourite part. Making the old look new again with just a little elbow grease. The rims are a little wobbly so I'm going to attempt to straighten them. I have spoken.

I have solved the mystery of the red button on the tank. No, It's not the warp drive, not the smoke screen, not the "laser". It's the horn. Doing it's best to alert the batteries of impending danger. This seems to be a stock mounting as the connections, condition and look of all the components match the original. I'm quite happy with the arrangement because it gives the front of the bike a cleaner look, never mind the audibility issues.

I found the brake drums a bit warped and one of the shoes cracked, but again, almost no wear.

Soon It'll be time to reassemble.

KDB Extraction

2008-05-03T22:29:00.000-07:00

When I first got #12 Orange home, I hooked up the burnt smelling motor to a 12v battery. Dead as Stephen Harper's black little heart. I removed the armature to see the damage. The windings are black and toasty, but the bearings, brushes and commutator show almost no wear, feeding my theory that the owner cooked the motor very soon after buying the bike.

Motor removal was harder than I had hoped. I tried gently tapping with a hammer and a wood block but it was stuck good so I quickly fabricated a puller which worked perfectly. I cut up my thumb and forefinger on the metal bandsaw in a moment of unusual carelessness. I think the thumb cut went right to the bone. (shiver) But I soldiered on and got the beast pulled out. Some of the black paint came off revealing a blue "hammerite" finish which must have been the colour of the motors as they came from the KDB factory.

I then took the motor to Armature Electric who gave me a quote for $700 to rewind it but I have since decided to try to rewind it myself. I Don't think it's really that difficult to do but I am looking for someone who can walk me through it. Any takers?

Orange-A-Peel

2008-05-03T10:11:00.000-07:00

Until I have time to shoot my own, here's a video of an Auranthetic in action.

Charger II: "The Grinning"

2008-05-03T01:11:00.002-07:00

In case you don't know, the "EV grin" is the perma smile one achieves when driving an electric vehicle. There is something about the power, silence and smoothness of an electric motor that just seems right. You can't help but grin. The top three countdown of things you don't miss from a gas motorcycle #3: the clutch, #2: shifting gears #1: kick starting. The only thing you kick on this little baby is ASS!

I already have another "electric auranage" with thanks to Don. Since buying my first one (#12 Orange) I did a bunch of research on the brand and found a small but dedicated community of enthusiasts on the "interweb". On an Auranthetic enthusiasts forum I met Don who was an owner in Vancouver. A few days later he offered me his bike for a very reasonable price. I couldn't resist because I am a while away from getting #12 on the road.

No gas stations, no smell, no noise, no stalling, no kick starting, no jerry cans, no oil changes, spark plugs, etc, etc, etc.

Fun, power, and the open road!

The New Toy

2008-04-28T23:50:00.000-07:00

It was love at first sight.