dead battery

In 2022, after nine years of use the battery began to self-discharge due to dendrite formation, indicating it had reached the end of its calendar lifespan. It could still hold a charge, but only briefly. .

The vinyl strapping effectively contained cell swelling throughout its lifespan, with significant physical stress evident upon removal. The plywood base remained in good condition.

Body work continued now off the road.

new front fenders

no before pic

front was out of shape from PO crash

fiberglass vs welding

8 years on the road

 32072 electric miles B-)

replace headliner and stuff

Remove glass to replace headliner. Fix some rust. 

this spot has had it coming for a long time

feels better now

helper is growing fast

rubber cement and binder clips all the way around

there are metal bows inserted in sleeves holding the middle up

interesting wind screen install using the "rope trick"

the silver strip goes in last to tighten the whole deal up

7 years

 Another battery-trouble free year of drivin'!

                            7 years

                            31800 gas free miles

fun accident

The other week dead at a green light, groping about for power, I realized over 5 long seconds that my main contactor had dropped out!

I'd just turned On the air conditioning loading the 12V system down below 10 - ah ha, my 12V battery must not be making good connection! My DC-DC converter can not run so many accessories alone..

I rolled a window down and made a smooth recovery with minimal honking behind.

Back home I confirmed my theory and began to clean the 12V battery connection. With the 12V battery cable in my left hand furiously working it with a wire brush it slipped falling upon the high voltage battery. Zap!

Bitten by my minimalist exposed high voltage battery design!

Death toll:
1 fuse
1 motor controller logic board
12V to 5V USB converter
at least 1 cell monitoring board..

 

The damage was repaired by Manzanita Micro and we should be on the road tomorrow.  :)

6 years on the road

No battery issues in 6 years

29434 electric miles

python

Here is my  python script. Let me know if you have any ideas why it crashes when log_data() is called?

import time
import serial
import smtplib

from email.message import EmailMessage

def log_data(filename, line):
    file_handle = open(filename, 'a+')
    file_handle.write(line)
    file_handle.close()


print('Hello World!')

ser = serial.Serial(
    '/dev/ttyAMA0',
    baudrate=57600,
    parity=serial.PARITY_NONE,
    stopbits=serial.STOPBITS_ONE,
    bytesize=serial.EIGHTBITS)

time.sleep(.1)

try:
    ser.write('H\r')
    time.sleep(.25)
    ser.write('2\r')
    time.sleep(.25)
    ser.write('6\r')
    ser.reset_input_buffer()
    kludge = 0
    while True:
        data = ser.read_until('\n', 120)
        if kludge > 2 and len(data) > 12:
            log_data('log.txt', data)
            parse = data.split()
            print(parse[0]
                  + ' ' + parse[1]
                  + ' Amps ' + parse[8]
                  + ' ~ ' + parse[9]
                  + ' Volts ' + str(int(parse[10]) * 9.0 / 5 + 32)
                  + ' ~ ' + str(int(parse[11]) * 9.0 / 5 + 32)
                  + ' degF')
        kludge = kludge + 1

except BaseException:
    # email logged data before quitting
    print("Emailing data...")
    textfile = 'log.txt'
    with open(textfile) as fp:
        # Create a text/plain message
        msg = EmailMessage()
        msg.set_content(fp.read())

    msg['Subject'] = 'The contents of %s' % textfile
    msg['From'] = 'chrisdarilek@gmail.com'
    msg['To'] = 'chrisdarilek@gmail.com'

    username = 'chrisdarilek@gmail.com'

    # Send the message via our own SMTP server.
    s = smtplib.SMTP('smtp.gmail.com:587')
    s.starttls()
    s.login(username, password)
    s.send_message(msg)

    s.quit()
    print('Blow up the spacestation!')


finally:
    ser.close()
    pass