Endless Sphere

There's just not enough trees to consider it as a replacement for the insane amount of energy we consume in the form of fossil fuels. I agree it's not a 1:1 replacement. But there may well come a time when most of our road transportation needs are met by EV's or PHEV's. I use about ten gallons of g...

Regarding no BMS i've found this discussion. It seems that "The cells automatically balance themselves much like Lead Acid chemistries when charging." Nope. Lead acid cells just outgas a bit if you overcharge them. This allows the rest of the cells to "catch up" to the overcharged cells. LiFePO4 ju...

Then, can I use a resistor on the charger "+" wire to drop the voltage to 36-37V ? Coz doing some research on internet, I've seen chargers for 36V LFP at 43.8V. Indeed, on the original Scachner charger seen on internet, write "output 36V". Absolutely not. Resistors work to drop voltage only when cu...

I would like to get to Anderson Powerpole connectors, I need to know more about them, so thanks for pointing them out. If you have a favorite crimping tool, please let me know. I have had OK luck with the cheapest crimper they sell on the Powerwerx website - the TRIcrimp. It will crimp contacts for...

Hi; I get a second hand LifePO4 Schachner 36v / 9Ah batt XLR 5 pin mother-plug (measured, indicates 33V and can spin a brush motor-meaning battery is good). I tried to charge it with a TranzX charger 42V 2Ah XLR5 pin designed for my old TranzX Li-Ion BL05 battery, but the green LED, do not turn red...

Design has to meet a purpose, with requirement and priorities. Exactly. And it has to be done rigorously. There is, of course, a way to accomplish what you describe and have it be a good design. You can requalify the parts. You can do it yourself, but the better way is to work with the manufacturer...

So the batteries are apparently 12S (50.4 volts charge) each - does anyone know what the AH rating is of these things? It would be nice to see a standard form factor for mid-energy batteries.

PROBLEM: replaced factory silver solder on battery terminals with 12-10 AWG Disconnect F clip connectors and performance is "sketchy." I have not added any tin solder to the tab/connector point nor tinned the wire, before crimping. Nearly fried my Fluke Mutimeter in attempting to measure DC amperag...

I have no idea what the gas price is in Central Texas. I started riding my bike (regular bike, not my ebike) to work most days. We now have one ev and one phev (and an ebike of course.) We get gas about once every six months. It's so rare that it's a way to entice the kids to take a shopping trip: ...

You are pushing this at tad too far, with ‘poor design’ and ‘constant failures’. OK. I stand by my statement that using components outside their ratings is poor design. Pretty much every component failure I have looked at over my career has been due to someone, either intentionally or unintentional...

Of course I have had controllers damage, and sometimes they need mosfets replaced a few times before I have a reliable set that last. That's because you are driving the MOSFETs far past their limits. You are eventually ending up with MOSFETs that do not fail immediately under that abuse. Like most ...

markz wrote: ↑

Sep 11, 2018 5:08 pm

Wood is cheap (if not free) and plentiful, better then farmers growing food to convert to fuel.
Insteading of advancing, I say lets go back 8 decades

Why not? Nowadays people can definitely do better than this:

http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2010/01/ ... -cars.html

However you look at it hydrogen is energy intensive and expensive to produce. Fuel costs for hydrogen 13 US cents per kilometre versus 8 cents for petrol and 3 cents for electricity. The large embodied energy in hydrogen makes the "well-to-wheel" consumption awful - requiring up to five times as mu...

Hydrogen is a decent option for storage of electrical energy. There are, however, several very serious problems with it. 1) It is the most dangerous fuel we have. It leaks through almost everything, unlike natural gas. It is explosive in a very wide range of concentrations, unlike natural gas. It mu...

Hello, I am an eee student and I want to design a battery management system based on ltc680x-2 ICs but I couldn't find any libraries for proteus. If there isn't any libraries then what should I do? Try LTSpice. It has libraries for almost all the Linear Tech parts. You'll have to build some cell mo...

steveu88 wrote: ↑

Sep 10, 2018 8:01 pm

maybe somewhere down the road i'll put it back on, make the pedals functional again. the pedals are in a fixed position as footrests.

Ah, I wondered how the pedals were going to clear that front wheel.

A critical power loss in this, is not going to be a fixed wing glide down landing , or a heavy "free rotor" helecopter crash landing.....it more like riding in a decending missile ! I very much suspect that it can land safely (perhaps not as smoothly as it might otherwise) after losing an engine/pr...

Hillhater wrote: ↑

Sep 10, 2018 4:48 pm

If you are concerned about costs, you should not even be considering a brand new car.
Look for the 1-2 yr old depreciated models with a few years manufacturers warranty still valid.

Agreed there. You can save a lot of money without sacrificing a lot of life by buying cars a few years old.

amps lowers when you increase voltage for the same wattage drawn, amps = heating. thinner wires NO " beefer wires..." when you increase voltage Correct. However, if that higher voltage requires that you run your controller at a much lower pulse width to achieve the same winding current, then you wi...

dustNbone wrote: ↑

Sep 06, 2018 3:10 pm

The Focus is probably the best domestic on the list.

Well, you can take that one off the list. Another victim of the new tariffs.

How can one fet run 150A constant current? how come it is rated for 650 (freaking) volts? How can those little legs transfer 150A? AND if all of this is just a not too good to be true fairytale then why not make a powerful yet super small controller with a single fet? First off, it is IXYS. They ar...

dustNbone wrote: ↑

Sep 09, 2018 5:48 pm

They are so screwed when Toyota starts seriously making EVs.

Eventually, yes. But the first to market has a huge advantage, and that will keep them going for 10-15 years.

Hillhater wrote: ↑

Sep 08, 2018 12:36 am

Hmm ? .. So , having found out what actually goes on,..not even a $10 million carrot could entice him to work in such a company ?

A $20 million carrot somewhere else could make that decision pretty easy. Especially once you have experience pulling a company like Tesla out of financial collapse.

Anyone else's rear derailleur run against the hub motor in the highest gear? Do you mean _lowest_ gear (largest cog?) Usually the highest gear is the farthest from the hub motor. On my first ebike I had that problem, but I just ignored it until they sort of wore each other away. (I wasn't using low...

marty wrote: ↑

Sep 05, 2018 2:34 pm

Want a new car. Thinking 4 door hatchback. Electric might be good, gas seems way cheaper. Really would like a plastic car.

Prius Prime. Electric _and_ gas. Mostly plastic. $27,300.